


Nor Yet Favor to Women of Skill

by daystarsearcher



Series: Osgood Must Suffer [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ableism, Abusive Relationships, Angst, Brainwashing, F/F, Forced Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Imprisonment, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicide, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:59:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5952843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daystarsearcher/pseuds/daystarsearcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Osgood isn't dead. That would be too easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nor Yet Favor to Women of Skill

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Ableism, abusive relationship, brainwashing, character death, forced pregnancy, gaslighting, imprisonment, murder, rape and sexual assault, Stockholm Syndrome, suicide, victim blaming, violence.  
>   
> I'd like to give a shout-out to a couple resources that were invaluable to me in writing this. Any true notes that I may ring in the portrayal of an abusive relationship are thanks to them; anything I still get wrong is down to me. The [ Captain Awkward](http://captainawkward.com/) advice blog had many useful first-hand stories under the '[' Darth Vader Boyfriend](http://captainawkward.com/?s=darth+vader+boyfriend) tag, and the blog as a whole was so absorbing that I binge-read the entire thing over a period of two weeks. It also turned me on to the second resource I want to recommend, [ Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/why-does-he-do-that-lundy-bancroft/1102335902?ean=9780425191651). I got it from my library, but if the links [here](http://www.mdjunction.com/forums/emotional-abuse-discussions/general-support/11107596-free-lundy-bancrofts-why-does-he-do-that-read-online) are legit then it looks like you can read it online.  
>   
> Lastly, Osgood is a scientist. Please forgive how rubbish my science is. (The alien red blood cells having nuclei is intentional, though, I swear.)
> 
>  **Edit** : AU since the revelations of The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion.
> 
> Doctor Who is the property of the BBC. I do this solely for the reward of seeing how much I can put Osgood through.

It's cold, and dark, and wet, and she can’t see. 

Somewhere—behind her?—Missy giggles. 

“You look so adorable,” she says. “So confused! Like an eensy weensy wittle wabbit left out in the wain.” She heaves a sigh. “It’s such a pity that the Doctor’s going to kill you.”

#

The black velvet of the sofa Osgood and the Mistress are sitting on is soft and warm against Osgood’s skin, raw and red after being vigorously scrubbed dry of the sticky, foul-smelling fluid she regained consciousness in. The Mistress has wrapped her in a warm wool blanket. Heat wafts from the crackling flames of the fireplace. 

And Osgood cannot stop shivering.

“You k-killed me,” Osgood says. Her teeth are chattering. She is trying to clench her jaw and stop them chattering. She is trying not to think about what will happen if she needs her inhaler because if she panics she will only need it sooner. 

Everything is a blur without her glasses, an out-of-focus video panning too fast. The Mistress’ face is a blur of black curls framing smears of blue and crimson over the ivory of a corpse.

“Not _permanently,_ ” Missy says, as if Osgood had accused her of taking the last packet of crisps. “I uploaded your data into a new body, didn’t I? Took a few pounds off your tum when I did, no need to thank me. Besides, what was I supposed to do, let the Doctor poach you?”

“Y-you killed me,” Osgood insists. She swallows. Maybe this is a stupid hill to die on, but the Mistress has already killed her, what’s she going to do, do it again? “You _burned me alive.”_

“Don’t be so self-centered,” Missy chides, her pout wasted on Osgood’s eyes but perfectly clear in her voice. “You, you, you, that’s all you can talk about. You think you’re the only one who’s ever been burned alive? Stop bringing it up, there’s a dear.” An impressionist smear of violet paint—her arm swinging up to pat Osgood’s bare shoulder. Osgood flinches. “Oh, you are simply the _cutest,_ ” the Mistress purrs. “I’m positively tingly!”

All the blood in Osgood’s body rushes to her face, great, she apparently blushes at compliments even when they come from alien sociopaths—alien sociopaths who are now tracing figure eights on the bare skin of her arm, sending pleasant little shivers along her nervous system...

“Really, how has anyone resisted killing you before?”

She makes herself remember the pain, to push away all the embarrassment and warm blood-rushing-places feelings. “What happens now?”

“You think time is linear!” Missy claps her hands, delight ringing in her voice. “Oh, that’s just precious.” She turns musing. “But you didn’t say ‘please,’ and that puts me out _considerably.”_

And apparently even having the worst happen and actually dying doesn’t do a thing about instinctive fear response, because the careful emphasis on those last five syllables makes an ice-cold flame lick up the back of Osgood’s spine and her heart kick into overdrive; she is a deer in an open meadow, caught in the eyes of a wolf. _Run don’t run run don’t run._

“I’m waaaaaaaaaaiting,” Missy sings, her voice as sweet as arsenic in honey.

Osgood licks her lips; they are dry. She cannot see the Mistress’ face clearly and she is probably imagining that the Mistress’ eyes slide towards her lips as she licks them.

In other news, someone should do a study on the link between fear and arousal. No special reason.

“What happens now, please?” she manages.

“Well, since you asked so nicely, you get a present!” The Mistress is practically in her lap—oh God, her lap, there is a Time Lady just above her lap—before Osgood can blink, pressing a pair of glasses onto Osgood’s face, and the scene resolves crisply in front of her: scarlet lipstick, smirking lips and cat-slanted blue eyes, and beyond them—but Missy cups her cheek with a deceptively strong hand, hooking her fingers up under Osgood’s chin, her thumb just pressing against Osgood’s pulse point. “Oh yes, red is your color, much more sassy! You must get more confident in your appearance, there’s a certain geek girl charm but desperation is completely off-putting. Why don’t you work on that, and if you’re very good—” she dangles an inhaler in her other hand—“I’ll let you have this.”

Just the sight makes Osgood gulp, her throat seizing up, her lungs clutching frantically at their reserves of air, every emotion but anxiety forgotten. “I need that!”

“Tsk tsk, what did I say about desperation?” The Mistress wags her finger, the inhaler bobbing up and down with it. Up. Down. “Let’s see, what did I have next in the diary?” Her brow puckers in thought. Up. Down. “Oh, all the usual things one does with pets, I imagine. Should we get you a bell? I think we should get you a bell!”

Osgood knows she should be focusing on the Mistress’ words, should be focusing on her words and formulating a strategy, but the blur of her inhaler is swinging to and fro in the air and she cannot panic, she cannot, she has to keep breathing, breathing is very important and very difficult and the Mistress is very very close to her and her voice is a very lovely voice even when it is being terrifying and her lovely voice is strumming Osgood’s insides like a harp and all these facts taken together are endlessly confusing.

“I’ve been taking an interest in the Doctor’s hobbies, see, all the magazines…” the Mistress settles completely into Osgood’s lap now— _lap lap LAP, there is a Time Lady in her lap,_ Osgood’s brain does not know how to cope with this and is resorting to the neural equivalent of flashing a large ERROR sign over and over—and reaching over her to pluck up a Cosmo and flap it in her face… “They all recommend sharing hobbies with your boyfriend. I’ve tried it before, but the humans always ended up being so _dull_. But we’ll be able to have lovely conversations about science, won’t we, Osgood? I mean, of course you’re completely remedial at the moment, thick as a board, but I can instruct you! I have my Mary Poppins instructing dress and everything. And I’ll try not to be cross, but I don’t think you’ll make me cross, will you? I don’t _want_ to be cross at you and have to kill you again before we’ve even gotten to know each and painted each other’s nails and played Truth or Dare. And then when we run into the Doctor I can say, ‘Hello Doctor, look at your companion, now back at mine, now back at your companion, now back at mine. Sadly, your companion isn’t mine, but if she were, she could do SCIENCE. Look back at your companion. She’s dead! I killed her with a death ray my companion made me, because my companion can do SCIENCE. Look back at my companion: she’s just disabled all the shields of your silly little allies! Anything is possible with a science-y companion. I’m on a throne.’” 

Missy looks at Osgood expectantly.

 _ERROR,_ goes Osgood’s brain. Also, _Time Lady on lap._ Also, _inhaler._

_Please, please, please, inhaler._

Missy continues to look at Osgood as if she has something important to contribute.

Osgood coughs.

Missy pouts. “Oh come on, I spent ages thinking that up, you could at least smile.”

“You sh-should probably just torture me,” Osgood says. She tries to say it the way Kate would say it. Or the way she thinks one of her favorite companions would say it—Sarah Jane, maybe, or Jo, or Liz—in the files back at HQ that she reads on her lunch break. “Just go ahead and do it.” She swallows, hard, because she knows this is a deal the Mistress will take her up on. Her throat hurts. “I’ll probably tell you something about U.N.I.T. eventually, but it’ll take a really long time, and I’ll lie as much as I can, so it’ll be a hard job and you should just get started.”

“Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie,” says Missy, shaking her head like a tragically disappointed head teacher. Osgood has to fight down an instinctive cringe. “May I call you Ozzie? I feel like we’ve reached that stage in our friendship. Ozzie, whatever makes you think I care about U.N.I.T.?” She flops backwards onto the couch, sighing. “I mean, it was rather satisfying when the blonde one went whooshing out of the hole in the airplane. Whoosh!” She makes a zooming motion with her hand. “Like a vacuum cleaner!”

_Kate._

“But she didn’t even have a mustache!” Missy is saying, sounding honestly put out. “Let’s be friend-brutally-honest here, dear, ninety percent of her father’s legacy was that mustache.”

There is a roaring sound in Osgood’s brain like a thousand crashing waves and she shoves upward, tumbling Missy onto the floor as she surges away, halfway to the door and her hand reaching out for the doorknob and—

Her glasses clamp tight around her skull and a beam of pain strikes like lightning through her eyes, stabbing downward through her spine. She crumples like paper, hands barely fast enough to brace herself against the floor as her skeleton goes red-hot, melting her down into a twitching, huddled mass of disconnected nerves and pain. 

She tries to raise her head, she tries at least to see—

Missy is raising her hand, and there is a bracelet on that hand that Osgood has not seen until this moment, and the Mistress presses a button and Osgood screams again as agony sparks through her eyes into her brain and everything goes red _(red’s your color)_ and then there is nothing, nothing, nothing.

#

Nothing.

Is she dead?

She doesn’t remember being dead before.

She cannot see anything. Everything stretching out before her is a colorless not-even-gray, no shading, no perspective, no contour or shadow or light.

She cannot hear anything. Not even her heart, her breathing, the buzzing empty echo of no feedback for her ears, just NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING blaring silently and unceasingly in her brain, no off switch for something that’s not on.

She cannot feel anything. There is no floor, there is no air on her skin, there is not brush of hair or clothing, she cannot lick her lips or move her hands to—her hands—where are her hands _she can’t feel her hands where is her body it is gone it is gone she is dead and it is gone—_

She cannot breathe; she is not breathing--

 _The Doctor will save me,_ Osgood tells herself. _The Doctor will save me. The Doctor will save me._ And after awhile she can’t tell how if it’s been only seconds or an eternity that she’s been saying it, and she keeps thinking of all the people the Doctor never saved, the times he got things wrong or arrived too late, and before she even realized it she’s changed the words: _Kate will save me. Kate will save me. Kate will—_

Kate is dead.

Osgood tries to scream and she needs to scream oh god if she could just make one single sound hear one single thing if she could just scream oh god but she has no mouth and there is no sound and there is nothing in the universe but her awareness of it stretching out before her and closing in on her forever forever forever forever forever…

#

Someone is stroking her hair.

Back and forth, back and forth. Fingertips sliding across her hair, fingernails lightly grazing her scalp, cool fingers tucking strands behind her ear.

Someone is stroking her hair, and it is the most wonderful feeling in the world.

“He kills all my friends,” says a voice—connected to the hands that are stroking her hair? So gentle, so gentle and sad, the voice and the hands, so soft and good. “He’s terribly jealous, the Doctor. I’m not allowed to love anyone else. 

“I’m the same. If I’d let him keep you, then he’d had loved you, and I’d have had to kill you permanently, don’t you see? It’s better this way. I can play with you for a little bit, my Ozzie, my pet.”

Osgood can feel more things now; the handcuffs biting into her wrists behind her back, her naked skin pressed against the lab coat that seems to be the only thing that she is wearing, and she knows these are terrible things but the hair-petting feels _so good._

“It’s such a pity the Doctor’s going to kill you.”

A sob catches in Osgood’s throat. Something else catches there, and she hacks a cough, wheezing and spitting phlegm, until Missy undoes the gag and takes the bowtie out of her mouth. Osgood flinches, but Missy presses the inhaler there instead, and before she can think about what the Mistress might have added to the medication, Osgood greedily sucks in.

“That’s it,” Missy croons. “Take your time. You died so bravely both times, Ozzie, I’m so very proud. You’re a brave, brave girl.”

She wipes the tears off Osgood’s face, and feeds her bits of chocolate cake with her fingers, and Osgood hates herself more and more with every sweet, rich crumb she lets past her lips.

#

It takes Osgood an hour after the Mistress leaves—she thinks it’s an hour, there are no clocks so she’s been counting the seconds—does time even exist if she’s where she thinks she is?—it’s probably an hour—to make herself get off the bed and check the door.

It’s locked. Of course it is.

There’s a mirror. She tries not to look at herself in the mirror. She’s fine, she’s fine she’s fine she’s _(dead)_ fine. She doesn’t need to look.

There aren’t any cameras that she can see, but there wouldn’t have to be, would there? Not unless Missy wanted to make a point. Time Lord technology. When something can be bigger on the inside, there’s no reason for the outside not to be too small to be seen with the naked eye.

There’s no reason Missy couldn’t be looking at everything right now through Osgood’s own eyes—

Her hands are up and wrenching at the glasses before she’s even finished processing the thought, and her panic spikes wide and high as they refuse to budge, seemingly welded onto her face, of course, Cyberman tech, who knows what’s in the glasses, who knows what in her body now, swimming through her bloodstream her eyes her _brain—_

“Inhaler,” she says to herself through gritted teeth, trying to make it remind her of the way Kate says it to her casual and offhand, to remind herself that it’s okay to need things—

And then she remembers that she doesn’t know what’s in the inhaler.

Missy let her keep the inhaler. Missy is the Master, who has killed more humans than Osgood can count, and those humans include Osgood. 

The wheezing starts then, her whole chest tightening like an iron band is squeezing around it, her ribs rattling with the cough that starts and keeps going and keeps going and keeps—she tries to sit down on the bed but that sends a cloud of dust into the air and her whole chest and neck tighten like she’s a marionette on overstretched wires, her vision is flashing black and red, _your color your color yourcoloryour—_

She pulls the cap off the inhaler and jams it in her mouth, breathes deep.

She takes the inhaler out, and breathes out slowly.

A heaviness tries to settle in her heart like cement.

She has already used the inhaler once, she reminds herself. The second time is regrettable, but she’s not exposing herself to anything she hasn’t been exposed to before. Kate would tell her not to beat herself up for the past. Kate would tell her to make a plan for the future.

_Kate…_

It is the duty of every captured U.N.I.T. member to attempt escape. 

So she will explore her cell in minute detail, watching out for dust traps, and when the Mistress takes her out of here she will observe everything she can. If she’s on the Mistress’ TARDIS then there’s bound to be a lab around her somewhere. The Mistress talked about teaching her: that means access to scientific equipment. Equipment she can use to analyze the contents of this inhaler. Maybe even equipment to synthesize some long-acting and short-acting beta-antagonists of her own that she can stockpile. 

And in the meantime she is going to have to be on extra-high alert for the symptoms of an oncoming attack, so that she can get to a dust-free part of the room, sit upright, and breathe as slowly and deeply as she can, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She needs to do this even if there’s nothing wrong with the medication, because she’s the Mistress’ pet project now, and the inhaler will make a perfect doggie treat to dangle above her head in return for good behavior.

And if she’s very, very lucky, she’ll manage to escape before she needs to use any of this.

#

Missy fingers the frills on the shirt Osgood is wearing. 

“Oh my,” she breathes. “ _Yummy.”_

Her fingers caress the carmine silk, rubbing it slowly between them, and Osgood is hyper-aware of how close the Mistress is standing, how slowly and deliberately she is massaging the soft silk frills of the shirt that Osgood found in the closet, that Osgood took because it reminded her of an earlier incarnation of the Doctor—

But no, that’s ridiculous, Osgood’s imagining things. She’s stressed and she’s completely imagining any significance to slightly dilated pupils and the movement of the Mistress’ hands so close to her—

“This outfit needs just one more thing!” Missy’s grin is slow and feral, a cat baring her fangs before squeezing a plump mouse between her claws. She snaps the collar around Osgood’s neck. It has a bell. “There! Adorable.”

Osgood swallows, tries to breathe deep. She’s not going to cry.

 _This is only for a little while_ , she reminds herself. _Only a little while._

“Oh dear.” Missy frowns. “I hadn’t thought to get a leash! I’m so new to accessorizing. Still, needs must!” And she hooks her fingers under the edge of the collar and pulls Osgood along.

Her fingers are ice-cold against Osgood’s skin, and the hot blood underneath, and that is the only reason Osgood shivers.

The bell on the collar jingles.

#

Osgood has seen amazing things. Her asthma might have disqualified her from a posting on U.N.I.T.’s moon base, but even working out of London, she has still seen creatures from other planets, technology from other timelines. And one time, Jo Grant-Jones hugged her. So all in all, Osgood has seen a lot of really amazing things. 

But this is—

This is—

“You have a B-meson oscillator!” she gushes, running her hands over the smooth chrome surface as if it might disappear. It’s so smooth! Her hands can’t stop touching it; her heart is going a million times a minute. “Do they oscillate fully into antiparticles and back again? Does that explain the prevalence of matter over antimatter in the universe? Was Einstein right when—”

“You’re drooling on the equipment, dear,” Missy says with an indulgent smile.

Osgood drops her hand like the oscillator is red hot, backs up a step. “Sorry.”

“Oh, go on,” Missy says, taking her hand and tracing it along the lines of the machine. It is very smooth. The oscillator. Not Missy’s hand. Though that is also smooth. Not that Osgood is paying attention. “I didn’t bring you here just to look.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Osgood asks, hesitant. Her hand tense. She wants to keep touching the oscillator. She wants to pull away from Missy’s hand.

She thinks she wants to pull away from Missy’s hand.

“Because I thought you’d _like_ it,” Missy says impatiently. “Isn’t that what the Doctor does with his pets? Things they like? Space travel and good deeds, and I don’t know, ice cream? Do you like ice cream? Silly question, everyone does.”

“Why are you trying to do things I like?” Osgood asks, feeling a little like a parrot.

“Well, I certainly don’t know, if _this_ is going to be your reaction,” Missy says, miffed and dropping Osgood’s hand. “I was _trying_ to be a good host.” Osgood’s skepticism must be showing in her face, because the Mistress adds haughtily, “I’m evil, not rude.” A pointed look. _“Unlike some people.”_

The weirdest thing is that Osgood thinks she might actually be being…sincere?

“Oh,” she says. Then, because this seems super inadequate, “thanks?”

“Oh look, the manners make their appearance!” Missy says, cross as Osgood’s gran when her scones haven’t been sufficiently praised. She heaves a magnanimous sigh and slings an arm around Osgood’s shoulders, chuckling as Osgood jumps. It seems to put her in a better mood. “I suppose I can make allowances for your generation. No manners, the whole century.”

“It’s a really nice oscillator,” Osgood says lamely.

Missy grins, and lowers her voice confidentially, squeezing Osgood closer so until her breath ghosts like frost over Osgood’s ear. “Wait until you see my cross-section of a white dwarf star. It’s in the back room.”

Osgood’s brain lights up like a Christmas tree, this new information overriding the timorous voice that had started to ask, _but why is her mouth so close to—_ She feels a high-pitched squealing noise come out of her mouth that she’s pretty sure can only be heard by dogs. “Oh my gosh! Does it have lithium in it? _Is that where the hypothesized remaining two-thirds of lithium in the universe is?!”_

Part of her is listening to her from far away, appalled at the enthusiasm spilling from her lips.

The other part of her really, really wants to know about the lithium.

(There is maybe a tiny part of her that is still noticing the weight of the Mistress’ arm, and the proximity of her lips to Osgood’s ear.)

“My goodness, is that the theory they’re still trotting about on your planet?” The Mistress shakes her head with fond forbearance, and a hint of mischief glinting in her eyes. “The real explanation is far more interesting. If you’d like…”

But Osgood’s attention has already been caught by the thrumming machine in the corner, retro tape tracks turning frantically as lights blink on and off, green and blue. Her heart thrills, a bird beating excited wings inside her chest. “What the…”

“Oh, that old thing,” Missy says off-handedly, and with maybe a hint of disgust. “That’s just the dark matter generator. Hasn’t worked properly for five centuries, not since _someone_ foiled my takeover of the last planet that made replacement parts. Just because he never remembers to buy the warranty--”

Osgood is gaping at her. She can feel the gape happening and she cannot stop it. “You have…you, you have—you—” 

Words fail her, and she can only surrender to the gape, dumbfounded, possibilities opening up before her like fields upon fields of stars.

Missy claps her hands like a little girl at a birthday party. “Oh, I know a fun game! Guess what dark matter is composed of: weakly interacting massive particles, axions, neutralinos, photinos, or midichlorians! If you get it right you can have a chocolate cherry cordial and a makeover!” She frowns. “Please guess it right, your hair is positively distressing.”

“Well, it’s not midichlorians,” Osgood says with a scoff, bending to examine the machine more closely. If she could just see how the power couplings intertwine, then maybe… “That’s a Star Wars reference.”

Missy huffs. “Geek.”

“Wait a minute,” Osgood breathes, realization dawning. “This can’t be a dark matter generator. Your power output’s not nearly high enough, even if you’re using telepathic circuits to cut down on the flow. This is a…” she scans the lines of the machine intently, mixing and matching with memories of bits of junk in the U.N.I.T. archive that she halfway got to work before it exploded the lab—“this is a dark matter to dark energy _converter!_ Oh, wow!”

“Oh, you’re absolutely brilliant!” Missy grabs her hands and swings her around in a circle, her smile open and lovely. “Look at that lovely little brain!”

A laugh startles its way out of Osgood’s throat as she’s whirled around, her face blushing crimson. She can feel a nervous grin working its way onto her face, edging its way in like a determined guest through a pushed-shut door.

“But how do you compensate for the gravitational force of—” she starts before Missy swings her onto a nearby armchair as plush as a cloud. “Oof!”

“Oh, there’s so much to show you!” the Mistress declares, eyes sparkling as she pours herself into the slim space between Osgood and the chair cushion. Her voice goes low and secretive, enticing. “This is just the tip of the iceberg, Ozzie. You can learn things no other human has even dreamed of. You can see sights never even imagined with that teensy—” the Mistress taps the side of her head—“little brain of yours. Oh, such a widdle iddle brain!” she coos, drumming all her fingers against Osgood’s head in a rapid staccato. “The birth of quasars, the death of universes! The centers of black holes, the pocket universes between dimensions! You can even—” her voice goes lower still, and Osgood finds herself leaning forward, breathless—“ _clone dinosaurs.”_

Osgood’s mouth falls open.

“Shut up!” Osgood’s mouth says before her brain can catch up and start shouting at her that _shut up!_ is not the smartest thing to say to a megalomaniacal super-villain who is holding you captive, especially not the one who has killed you twice, oh God, definitely not the smartest thing—

The Mistress pirouettes upward in a move that practically defies physics. “I have a T-rex in the secondary console room!” she says, grabbing Osgood’s hand and pulling her to her feet before spinning her in a circle as if this is all part of an extended waltz; Osgood clings to her fingers, dizzy. “Gift from an ex, would you like to see it?”

Osgood has seen Jurassic Park twenty-eight times. “Yes!”

The Mistress’ grin is as wide as the universe and for a second, she looks like nothing so much as Mary Poppins, heart full of joy and about to burst into song about the joys of learning, chimney sweeps, and spoonfuls of sugar. 

And a tiny treacherous seed of hope sprouts in Osgood’s heart. 

#

The pounding on her door jerks Osgood from a deep sleep.

“This is _urgent,_ Ozzie!”

Did the T-Rex escape? That console room door was not sturdy, and the Mistress apparently hadn’t fed it in a good few centuries— _‘temporal state of grace,' she said with a flap of her hand, like that was supposed to explain something_ — Osgood stumbles to the door and twists the knob, but it just rattles in its frame. 

“You—y-you locked it. From the outside. The door.”

A short, rather embarrassed silence. Then the tumblers of the lock click and whir and the door slams open as if there were a hurricane on the other side rather than a Time Lord. Missy comes charging in, swooping past Osgood—the relief that rushes through Osgood is as profound as if she had been a hurricane--and immediately dumps all the contents of her arms onto the bed.

“You need to teach me about being a girl!” she declares.

Osgood blinks several times. “What?” she hazards.

Hurricane Missy has blown past her and started organizing the pile on the bed into several different piles. One appears to be of trendy pajamas, another of snack foods, the next of make-up, and the fourth of DVDs starring Colin Firth. “I’ve never been a girl before! I don’t want to get the secret girl codes wrong, now do I? What if I wear the wrong earrings when I’m conquering a planet? No one will take me seriously.”

This is a trick. This has to be a trick. This is some kind of a trick wrapped around an insult tucked inside a plan to make Osgood look like an idiot. 

Missy frowns, looking up from the pile of crisps she’s arranged into a bar graph of different brands. “You’re not still sulking about the disintegrating, are you? I showed you a T-Rex! And I’m throwing you a party! Humans _like_ parties. You have to, or your hilarious little life-spans would just be you all screaming and running around in circles.” She flaps her hands in the air. “‘Aaaaaaaah I’m an insignificant speck in the universe, thank goodness for alcohol!’ That’s you. ”

“It’s just, um.” Osgood takes a step backwards, her shoulders touching the door. Locked door. Locked _bedroom_ door. “I don’t really know much about—girl things. Makeup and stuff.”

Missy rolls her eyes dramatically enough to earn them each a BAFTA. “That’s patently obvious, Ozzie.” Then a grin splits her face, odd in its innocence, like a gleeful crocodile. “We’ll learn together! Gal pals!” She frowns again. “Oh no, that’s a terrible phrase. I’m never saying that phrase again. Ozzie, write that down on the agenda—” she shoves a sparkly notebook into Osgood’s hands—“1. NEVER say ‘gal pals’ again.” She grabs Osgood’s shoulders in her now free hands and begins to march her towards the bathroom. “I’ve gotten you pajamas,” she declares with an amount of pride appropriate to winning the Nobel Prize, “and they’re pink! Pink is a gender-restricted color in your decade, I did my research.”

And as the door clicks shut behind Osgood, the Mistress actually, literally, bursts into song:

“I enjoooooooy being a girl!”

#

Osgood is having trouble concentrating on the plot of the Colin Firth film. This is maybe because she has always had trouble concentrating on the plot of Colin Firth films, maybe because this particular film does not seem to have a plot, and maybe because she is watching this film with a sociopathic alien who has killed her twice and seems to think this has made them best friends.

It’s not because Missy’s left leg is pressed firmly against her right as they recline on the frilly pillows and the deep red bedspread. 

Missy is still singing that Rodgers and Hammerstein song under her breath, the thirteenth rendition by Osgood’s count: “I flip when a fella sends me flowers/ I drool over dresses made of lace…”

Her leg is really very, very firmly pressed against Osgood’s. Is she doing it on purpose? Her hand is close to Osgood’s too, fingers almost brushing, but other than that she seems almost unaware of Osgood’s presence, leaning forward with her eyes raptor-intent on the action unfolding on the screen, her other hand feeding a steady stream of crisps into her mouth.

_(it was rather satisfying when the blonde one went whooshing out of the hole in the airplane)_

The Mistress said that. Said that about _Kate_. And Osgood is sitting here thinking about—no. No, she is not. Thoughts happen sometimes. They don’t have to mean anything. Obsessive thoughts loop over and over and over in your brain until they trap you in a cat’s cradle, but just because you have the thought doesn’t have to mean anything about you. It doesn’t have to mean that you want— _no._

_(it was rather satisfying when the blonde one went whooshing out of the hole in the airplane)_

Missy shrieks out a laugh at something Colin Firth has said, spraying chips outward in a cloud. 

_(it was rather satisfying when—_

It’s unreal, like something she heard the Mistress say once in a film, or a dream.

Maybe she was lying? It could be a lie. If Osgood were going to capture someone, the first thing she would want to do was make sure they didn’t believe anyone was coming for them.

But why would the Mistress go to the trouble?

Osgood just isn’t that important.

The Mistress flops backward in distress at something someone has said to Colin Firth. She licks the dusting of salt from her fingers, lingering on the tip of the sharp red nail. She is still sing-humming under her breath: “When men say I’m sweet as candy/ As around in a dance I whirl…”

Women twirl onscreen, skirts swirling as music swells. Missy’s brow creases, and Osgood’s heart rate goes through the roof. Is she angry? Is she going to lash out? Is that a rising note of irritation in her voice as she whistle-sings, can Osgood distract her without making her angry, maybe if she just shrinks back into the bed the Mistress won’t notice her, won’t take it out on her—

Any second now the other shoe will drop. Won’t it? Any second now that hand will move, that hand will touch Osgood’s hand, and that would be a bad thing, it would, it definitely would.

One time, when Osgood was having a panic attack, Kate took her hand.

_(it was rather satisfying—_

A lie, it has to be a lie. Doesn’t it? Because if it isn’t then the thoughts might mean something, they might mean—

“When someone with eyes that smolder/ Says he loves every silk’n curl/ That falls on my iv’ry shoulder…”

Missy’s skin is white as ivory, and her hair is down, dark curls tumbling along the line of her neck. They brush the black silk of her pajamas. Missy is—

Missy is turning to Osgood, frowning. “You’re not enjoying this film, are you?”

“The—the movie’s fine,” Osgood said hurriedly. “I’m not just—I don’t usually—romantic comedies, I don’t—”

Her breathing is starting to get short, and she grabs at a pocket that isn’t there, her fingers bunching uselessly in pink satin, before remembering that she doesn’t know where her inhaler is.

Missy passes it to her with a roll of her eyes. “You are an evolutionary dead end,” she informs her. 

Osgood sucks in deep, once, twice. She had to. The Mistress was watching.

Three is worse than two, but not irrevocable.

It feels…different this time. Or maybe she is paying more attention, since the attack was less severe? The pressure dissipates in her chest, but she feels an answering pressure rising in her temples, right where the frames of her new glasses squeeze tight around her skull—

And then it’s gone.

Missy is studying her, a cat-got-the-cream smirk playing around the edges of her lips. She reaches out and takes Osgood’s hand. Her fingers are cold but the grip is gentle. Her thumb strokes over Osgood’s palm and she slides the inhaler back into her own hand. “What do you usually watch, then?”

“Um…” Osgood has actually written out and continually updated a list of her top one hundred favorite movies since she was thirteen, but wouldn’t you know it, she can’t think of a single title. “You…you probably wouldn’t like them.”

“Oooh, intriguing.” The Mistress’ eyes flare wide for a second and she grins her reptilian grin, incisors resting lightly on her upper lip. “Now I do insist on knowing.”

A stray thought flits through Osgood’s mind, a note on a file at U.N.I.T. headquarters, something about Clangers--

“You probably don’t have them—”

And Teletubbies, the file said something about Teletubbies--

_“All of time and space, Ozzie.”_

And so Osgood takes a deep breath, and begins to explain the concept of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

#

“She broke her promise!” Missy exclaimed, her mouth dropping open as her hand freezes halfway through the act of painting Osgood’s fingernails red. A bead of nail polish drips across Osgood’s finger onto the bedspread, like a drop of blood. “But nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise!”

Onscreen, Pinkie Pie repeats that same sentiment, her eyes swelling in her face as she turns the exact shade of a fire engine.

Missy cheers, one hand waving the nail polish brush in the air while the other holds more tightly to Osgood’s own. Osgood tries not to jump.

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

“The genetics of this are just fascinating,” Missy goes on. “Rapid temperature change, alterable skin coloration, the elasticity of the muscular-skeletal system—”

“I know, right?” Osgood says, leaning forward—the physiology of cartoon characters is _much_ more comfortable conversational ground than chick flicks. “And what’s going on what that bone density? Those wings are vestigial at best—”

“Rocket propulsion,” Missy says firmly, letting go of her hand to wag a finger firmly at Osgood. “Depend on it, Equestria has perfected the nanotechnology necessary for hoof-based rockets.”

The corner of Osgood’s mouth twitches up despite herself. 

She’s just made the Mistress into a brony.

“In any case, Pinkie Pie is the clearly the superior member of this peer group,” the Mistress declares haughtily, returning half her attention to the embellishment of Osgood’s nails. “I hope this season ends with her bloody coup of Equestria and balloon parties for all!”

“I like her too,” Osgood says, trying to ignore the coup part. Her heart is thudding again suddenly in her chest. Maybe if she and the Mistress can agree on this little thing, maybe if she can take this one little step towards getting the Mistress to see her as a person… “I like how—how she always wants to make everyone happy. How hard she tries.”

“Not that they’re ever grateful!” Missy says indignantly. She blows lightly on the nail polish. She brings Osgood’s hand very close to her mouth to do this. Her breath ghosts over Osgood’s skin, her palm and the back of her hand and the veins and arteries at her wrist.

It is cold, and Osgood shivers, though the rest of her is warm.

Missy’s tone turns contemplative. “She’s not your favorite, though, is she? You strike me as a Twilight Sparkle.”

Osgood blinks, startled. “Yes. How…?” She knows Time Lords have some limited telepathic abilities, but to use it to guess favorite characters seems a bit much.

“Bookish, earnest, and initially uncertain of the power of friendship?” Missy smiles, pats Osgood’s cheek as though she’s a child who’s just asked how Missy guessed what she wanted for Christmas. “It’s you to a tee.”

“Oh.” It’s the first time anyone’s ever compared her to a character she actually likes. Normally she just gets Hermione. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

Missy gives her nails a final bit of scrutiny before tossing Osgood’s hand back into her lap. “There, you’re done. Red is so your color.” She turns her attention to the row of nail polish bottles in more colors than Osgood was even aware could be manufactured. She purses in lips in deep concentration before plucking a vial of deep plum. “Do me next! Do me do me do me!”

Most of her nails are still quite wet, and Osgood has to be very careful as she takes hold of the nail polish remover and cotton balls or the red will smear all over them. If she makes a mess, Missy might get angry, and if Missy gets angry—

Osgood’s hands shake just slightly as she unscrews the bottle’s lid, and the brush smears violet polish against the side of the glass. She can feel her chest tightening, a corkscrew winding tight and digging in deep. Breathe. Breathe. She doesn’t have to spend emotion on things that haven’t happened yet. She just has to think. She just has to have a plan, if she can just have a plan--

Osgood sneaks a look through her lashes at Missy, eyes wide and a delighted smile dancing on her face as she sits starting at the screen, once again fully absorbed in tales of anthropomorphized ponies. She holds out her hand expectantly, and Osgood takes it, slowly filling in the nail, purple polish pooling on the smooth surface.

She is painting the Mistress’ nails. She is painting the nails of the woman who murdered her.

Missy leans slightly against Osgood, her eyes still on the screen.

There has to be a way to keep the Mistress like this. If Osgood can just figure out the pattern of her reactions, the probabilities of behaviors and words triggering her rage, if she can just build a mental model to follow to the letter…

It’s all just details, and Osgood’s always been good with details.

“Humans take death so personally, don’t they?” the Mistress says. 

Osgood’s heart plummets in her chest, and her legs tense, telling her to run, run, _run,_ even as her brain screams that there’s nowhere to go. “Please—I’m sorry I’m not good at the sleepover things, I’m trying, I’ll try harder, I promise—”

“What are you babbling about?” Missy looks at her, frowning. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Ozzie, I’m not suggesting we kill you again right this second. You haven’t even started on my left hand yet.” She holds it out expectantly. “Think how silly I’d look trying to conquer planets with fingernails in two different colors!”

Osgood’s hands are shaking as she takes it. Maybe the brush will wobble and smear, maybe that will be the excuse, if only she weren’t so clumsy, if only she were graceful like her sister—

“I just want a friend,” Missy says softly, and the pain in her voice startles Osgood’s head back up. Missy’s eyes are so blue. For a second that seems to be the only thing in the world, that blue. 

“Um,” says Osgood. There is a terrifying possibility that Missy is about to cry, and Osgood has no idea what to do when normal decent human people cry, what do you do when the person crying is a psychopathic alien mass murderer?

Missy’s voice wobbles for a second. “I don’t have a single one left, you know. The Doctor—I don’t mind that he tried to kill me. I killed him once, fair’s fair. We never mind that, Time Lords, it’s not permanent. Just updating the wardrobe!” She tries to smile, but it’s as wobbly as her voice. “But he left me! He left me _behind!”_

There are tears brimming in her eyes, actual tears, _in the Mistress’ eyes_ , and Osgood has no idea what to do. She is—is she actually feeling sorry for her?

“Say something nice,” Missy pleads.

“I’m sorry,” Osgood says, and to her surprise, she finds that she actually is.

Because there’s something different about the Mistress to all the things she read about the Master in the U.N.I.T. files. Something old and fragile and achingly lonely hiding behind those blue eyes, something young and wounded and hiding behind the brittle smile and manic chatter. Something needy, and Osgood has never quite managed to learn to say no to someone who needs her.

The Mistress reaches out and touches the side of her face. Her touch is soft, and Osgood almost leans into it. 

Almost.

“And of course you’re just a silly little monkey without even any cymbals to bang together or anything, but I _like_ you, with your stupid outfits and that little scared look on your face and how you try so _hard_ to figure things out with that little brain.” Missy clasps her hand earnestly. “Also really lovely breasts if you would stop hiding them under so many layers that you’re practically wearing geological strata.”

Osgood is suddenly aware of all the blood in her body, rushing to her face, to her ears and her neck and the top of her breasts, in a shirt that suddenly seems too tight, in a room that suddenly seems too hot— “Um. Er. Ah. Well—”

“There, there, don’t try to be articulate, you’ll only embarrass yourself. Well, embarrass yourself more than you’re already doing with that fish face act.” Missy pats her hand.

“So…you want to be…friends?” Osgood says. It feels a bit like saying _so…you want to consider veganism?_ to a tiger.

“Oh good, that was getting through your thick monkey skull!” Missy says, beaming. She raps her knuckles against the side of Osgood’s head. “Parietal bone like that, you could probably stop a tank. You’ll forgive me, then, won’t you, and stop all this sulking? Be a bless poppet and say yes.”

“I…” The smart thing to do would be to lie. But somehow, she can’t.

“Oh, look at you,” the Mistress murmurs. “All tied up and tangled in pain reactions and raw nerve endings. Such a pretty piece of work.” Her left hand is back on the side of Osgood’s face, her fingertips tracing light designs on the skin of Osgood’s neck. 

Her fingertips are very cold, and Osgood can feel the beat of blood beneath her skin, can hear it in her ears.

“Don’t you see? I _have_ to hurt my friends.”

Osgood’s breath catches in her throat. 

“Just a little bit,” Missy continues, as though that is supposed to be reassuring, her fingertips still sketching spirals. “Just enough to know they are my friends. Because how can anyone be your friend if they don’t know how much you can hurt them and love you anyway? Like when you stopped calling that Janice girl because you knew you were going to forget to call her eventually and it was best to let her know that right away, so she wouldn’t become your friend before finding out how inconsiderate you were.”

Osgood starts. “How did you know about—”

“But humans have only one little life, and I forgot how attached you get to it.” Missy’s eyes are moist as she leans forward to touch her forehead against Osgood’s. “You understand, don’t you?” she whispers. Her breath bounces off Osgood’s lips. “You forgive me? Say something nice.”

“I—”

Osgood has no idea what she’s going to say next, but thankfully Missy interrupts her.

“You can teach me all about humans,” Missy says in a rush. “Feeding and caring and fish and chips and empathy and all that rubbish! I could get so much better at not hurting you too much, I really could, and we could watch My Little Pony and eat chocolates and make death rays together—oh, all sorts of girl things! You will forgive me for killing you, won’t you? Like the Doctor forgave me?”

Missy swallows, and Osgood can see the tension in her shoulders, the tears in her eyes.

The Master is a liar.

But why would the Mistress lie about this?

The Doctor always saw something good in the Master; he never would have let him live so long otherwise. If Osgood could just learn to see that too, if she could just learn how to nurture and encourage that good… 

Missy lays her head on Osgood’s shoulder, and oh, Osgood feels that hope in her chest, a red-hot fragile bubble of glass being slowly blown outward, so beautiful and so easy to burst. So easy to burn its holder.

She can do this. She will.

“Okay. I—yeah. I’ll do my best.”

“Wonderful! Oh, I knew you would!” Missy exclaims in delight, pulling back and clasping both of Osgood’s hands in hers. “I just knew I could count on you!” 

She leans closer, lowering her voice confidentially. “Now that I’m your best friend, I do have a question. A very pressing question about a delicate problem.” She lowers her voice even further. “A delicate _girl_ problem.”

The last time Missy inserted the word ‘girl’ before an innocuous word like ‘problem’ or ‘plan,’ Osgood ended up dead. But she seemed sincere just now, and also the nail polish is still drying, which leaves the alarming possibility that the Master is about to talk about periods.

Missy leans close— _close enough to kiss_ , insists a deranged part of Osgood’s mind— and whispers, “Are the sleepover pillow fights scheduled, or spontaneous?”

For several seconds, Osgood can only stare. “I don’t think that’s a real thing that happens.”

Although maybe it is. It’s not like Osgood would know. The last time anyone invited her to a sleepover she had been seven, and they had dunked her hand in water so she’d wet the bed and then sent her home in tears.

Missy flops backwards on the bed, pouting deeply. “But I was so looking forward to them!” She gazes reproachfully up at Osgood, wheedles: “Pleeeeeeeeeeease?”

It would be like kicking a kitten to say no. 

An evil kitten, but still.

“I guess we could,” Osgood says, setting down the nail polish bottle and picking up the pillow next to her hesitantly. She doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to do with it. Her fingers fret at a loose silk thread. “These aren’t deadly explosive pillows or anything, are they?”

Missy snaps upright, eyes shining. “No, but wouldn’t that be brilliant if they were?!”

“Um, one life,” Osgood says, clutching the pillow tighter. “Very attached.”

Missy pauses, tapping her fingers together thoughtfully. “What about robots? I’ve got loads of parts down in the lab—” Her eyes gleam. “We could make pillow robots!”

“With explosives?” Osgood asks, blinking. She’s not exactly sure how the conversation got to this.

“And lasers!” the Mistress says, leaping to her feet.

And that…that actually sounds quite fun.

Like the kind of thing Osgood thought she was going to do with all her friends at uni, before the repeated awkward silences and giggly whispers that stopped whenever she looked over told her that she wasn’t going to _have_ any friends at uni. 

“Okay,” Osgood says, trying the concept on for size. “Explosive laser pillow robots.”

“SCIENCE!” the Mistress cries like a goddess of war bearing a standard into battle, beaming, and she grabs Osgood’s hand—her hand, not the collar, she actually grabs her hand, and Osgood feels that little seed of hope inside put out a tentative tendril—and pulls Osgood along with her. 

Maybe this will work.

#

“Now you go get your hilarious amount of needed sleep, and tomorrow we’ll have some real fun! Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!”

The key turns in the lock behind Osgood as she enters her room, and she slumps onto the bed, heart singing and face flushed with victory. Not from the robots—the Mistress had cheated to bring her to a close defeat, though Osgood hadn’t thought that quite politic to point out—but from the entire evening. From successfully navigating the Missy minefield, avoiding all the metaphorical explosives and delivering herself safely back to the start. She has applied logic to a problem and logic had not failed her; she _can_ learn to read Missy’s social cues. 

She needs to start planning; between the disintegrating and the T-rex and the sleepover from Cloud Cuckoo Land combined with the Twilight Zone, she hasn’t done a single thing on her to-do list to escape. She has a nagging feeling that she has forgotten something important…

Someone?

Pain lances through her temples, and she hisses, gritting her teeth. Then it’s gone.

Where was she? Right, planning—but she can’t stop thinking about how well it had gone that evening. A grin blooms slowly over her face as she stares up at the ceiling, remembering the way Missy pumped the air like an over-caffeinated five-year-old when her pillow robot launched the winning missile. Remembering the way Missy had turned to her and swept her up in a hug, her silk pajamas smelling like soap, her lips pressing a firm kiss against Osgood’s cheek—

Somehow Osgood’s hand has come up to touch that spot on her cheek. She pulls it away, blushing.

The important thing is that she didn’t just keep from making Missy blow up at her. She had actually made Missy happy. And Missy had, in turn, actually thought about _Osgood’s_ happiness.

And it had actually been sort of…fun.

#

Osgood carefully aligns the slide under the powerful microscope. The Mistress has given her almost free rein in the lab, and though Osgood hasn’t found the necessary components for synthesizing her own beta-antagonists yet, she has been allowed to keep her inhaler with her when the Mistress is not there. And besides, all the random scientific bits and bobs provide a rabbit hole more addictive than TV Tropes or clicking through on Wikipedia. Her latest find is a comprehensive collection of red blood cell nuclei from one hundred and seventy-seven different species, the variation is fascinating, really, the papers Osgood could write about this! Well, she’d have to clear publication with Kate—

 _Kate_.

Osgood tries to swallow past the lump in her throat that tastes like betrayal.

She’s only doing what she has to do. She’s only doing it for now. 

She’ll have a plan, soon. Pretty soon, she’ll remember how to put together a plan. Osgood has excellent planning skills; every report card and workplace assessment she’s ever gotten has said so.

She prints ‘Draconian’ on the slide label, makes several notes on a piece of paper, and carefully stores the slide with the others. Her hands are still shaking, and she rubs the fabric of her over-long sleeves between her fingers, letting the texture soothe her.

And then she feels the eyes on her back.

A rustle of skirts confirms it and Osgood turns, quickly.

The Mistress is watching her from the doorway.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Osgood says. She smiles. Perhaps the Mistress will have some thoughts on the mitochrondial extrusion in the Dalek sample.  
The Mistress comes to check up on her quite often, and ask all about her finds and projects. Sometimes she grins and whirls Osgood in a circle and tells her she is brilliant. Sometimes she flops down on the floor and moans about how _boring_ Osgood is being trying to replicate cold fusion. Sometimes she stands very close and rubs Osgood’s shoulders and says, _are you happy, Ozzie, tell me you’re happy, tell me something nice._

Her eyes look…different…now. She is looking at Osgood like—

“I’m just working on the blood samples,” Osgood blurts. “Like you suggested.” 

The Mistress advances a step, and then another, her heels clicking against the white tile floor. “You like dressing up as him, don’t you.”

It’s not a question.

Osgood looks down at her outfit—a man’s shirt with question mark lapels, baggy tweed trousers, both of which she found in her closet—and when she looks back up, Missy has closed the distance between them completely. Her eyes are directly across from Osgood’s eyes. Her scarlet mouth is close enough to—

“Um,” says Osgood.

And then the Mistress kisses her.

It’s a long, slow kiss, cool lips unhurried but insistent.

Osgood is frozen. 

The kiss continues: stroking, promising, demanding. Osgood’s hands seem to drift upwards of their own volition, light on the Mistress’ elbows. The Mistress makes a pleased sound in the back of her throat and presses her mouth more firmly to Osgood’s, her teeth nipping lightly at her lower lip.

Should she…kiss her back?

She’s not exactly sure she’s good at kissing. She’s not exactly sure she wants to. But she can’t keep standing there doing nothing. If she keeps standing here doing nothing, the Mistress might get insulted, the Mistress might get angry. Osgood can’t afford that.

Osgood kisses back, hesitantly.

Missy _growls_ , and Osgood goes weak at the knees, wobbling until the Mistress catches her with a hand at the small of her back, pressing her firmly against her, and oh, hello, breasts. Breasts are touching. Wow. Osgood tries a little more of this kissing business and the Mistress does the growling thing in the back of her throat again and oh wow, the room has gotten very hot and Osgood’s nipples have gotten very hard, can Missy feel that oh god so embarrassing and oh! Tongue. Tongue, tongue is happening, tongue is happening very expertly and thoroughly throughout Osgood’s mouth, well, you would get more than a bit of experience in nine hundred years, wouldn’t you—

Osgood breaks apart from the Missy, gasping for breath.

U.N.I.T. files never prepared her for this. U.N.I.T. files were very expansive on matters like ‘how to resist the Master’s hypnotism’ and ‘how to turn the Master’s temporary allies against him (if they aren’t already),’ but they had been woefully silent on the subject of what to do when the Master regenerated into an attractive older woman and tried to stick her tongue down your throat.

“I—” Osgood tries to start. 

The Mistress’ eyes are boring into hers, deep dark pools of blue.

“You like dressing up as him,” the Mistress repeats, and her voice is just slightly husky, ragged at the edge with hunger. Her hand comes up and strokes a single strand of Osgood’s hair. 

“I like dressing up as him,” Osgood echoes without thought, and she can feel it now, the texture and the fit of each piece of fabric, the way the linen and wool brush and tease against her skin. The words flow easily out of her throat as if swept away by a stream, and isn’t that strange? Some part of her thinks it’s strange, insists on telling her so from somewhere deep inside.

But it’s hard to think about why it’s so strange when there’s nothing but the Mistress’ eyes, only her eyes, only her eyes and her voice and that’s the whole world.

“It makes you feel…good,” Missy says, her voice lingering on the words. “All dashing, and heroic, and a tiny bit…dangerous.”

And she feels it as Missy speaks, the way the shirt grips her curves and the weave of the tweed hangs heavy on her hips, rough against the soft skin of her thighs. And she does feel good, she feels lovely, floating on air and flushed all over like she’s had a few too many glasses of wine.

She leans forward as if she could drink in Missy’s voice, drink in her eyes.

“Good girl,” the Mistress says, and her other hand is on Osgood’s hip, and her hand is sliding under Osgood’s shirt and stroking her skin just above her hip, why isn’t Osgood stopping her from sliding her fingers across her skin like that, so cold, she should stop her but it’s so hard to think about stopping her and it feels nice, it—

_Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb_

Deep blue eyes, so blue, an entire ocean of blue and that voice— 

She was just thinking about something, a file, she was—

The Mistress’ voice is honey, dark and rolling and sweet, it slides hot and slick and sticky between Osgood’s legs, she can feel her pulse pounding between her legs, wet between her legs and it feels so good, she is so dizzy, she wants—

The Mistress is pressing her back against the counter, and her hand is sliding beneath the hem of Osgood’s trousers, her hand is dipping beneath the hem and her fingers are ghosting over Osgood’s pants and Osgood hears herself making a thin needy whine as she pushes forward into the Mistress’ hand, she is right over the Mistress’ fingers, she is watching herself from far away, she’s so dizzy and it’s all a blur, there something (and oh the Mistress is stroking her through the thin fabric, oh oh _oh_ ) she was supposed to remember, something she read in a file about a man with a beard, he did something—

_Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as—_

It feels so good, she doesn’t want it to feel so good but she never wants it to stop but she—

A sob rises up out of her throat, rebellious, and she chokes on it.

The Mistress blinks, and the world comes back.

Osgood’s face is wet, and she is crying. How long has she been crying?

“Ozzie, oh Ozzie.” And the Mistress is wiping the tears from her face, her eyes wide and reproachful. Osgood shivers and stumbles; Missy catches her and eases her gently into a chair. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You shouldn’t make me want to hurt you. Did you get frightened?”

“You…” Osgood’s voice is a croak. “You hypnotized—”

“Well, how could I keep from doing that?” Missy strokes her hair. “Look at you, all soft and yummy and stewing in your hormones like a chicken paprikash. How was I supposed to resist?” She presses her lips to Osgood’s temple, inhales deeply. “Oooooh, you’re all warm and sweaty. That’s nice.”

Osgood trembles, and oh, she wishes it was only with fear.

“All by yourself and so helpless,” Missy continues, stroking Osgood’s arm. Her tongue flicks out over her lips for a second, snake-like. “All those pretty little fears and yearnings flitting through your mind just waiting to be popped like bubble wrap. You’re a packet of crisps and I can’t eat just one, Ozzie, you were supposed to stop me. You said you’d teach me about humans!”

“I wasn’t expecting…” Osgood whispers. The Mistress is still so close; Osgood doesn’t know if it’s stopped, she doesn’t even know what it was that started. “I didn’t think you—”

“Would be interested in such things?” Missy interrupts. “Well, that’s understandable, completely understandable. I mean, I’m a sophisticated Time Lady and you’re a monkey with bad eyes and ridiculous lungs. I really should be more cross with you for trapping me like that—wrapping yourself up like a Christmas present in his old things. I can’t resist a pretty little present if you offer it up to me, Ozzie, oh, I’m greedy, I do love to rip the shiny wrapping paper, it makes such a lovely sound. You forgive me, don’t you? Go on, forgive me, cherries on top.”

Osgood’s brain is stuck on a phrase from the beginning of the monologue. “His…old things?”

“The Doctor will leave his clothing about willy-nilly,” the Mistress says, shaking her head. “Never go swimming with him, you’ll be scarred for life.”

Osgood touches the hem of her shirt. The sound of the cloth rasping together is unreal. “This…was the Doctor’s?”

“Well, it’s certainly not mine,” Missy says with an eye-roll. “ _Some_ of us manage to keep our fashion sense when we regenerate. Honestly, I thought you were supposed to be clever for a human.”

“It was the clothes,” Osgood says. She clings to this statement, feeling the relief as she finds a purchase for her thoughts. “It was the clothes that made you…do that?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t _you,_ ” Missy says with a snort. She stands abruptly, dusting off her hands. “I mean, look you, see previous statement regarding monkeys with bad eyes. Honestly, Ozzie, be a little more alert to your surroundings. Try to be more considerate of others with the consequences of your actions.”

#

The Mistress has decided that while disintegration is all well and good, there’s something wonderfully retro about tissue compression elimination. The only trouble is, she slightly blew up her old TCE centuries ago, and now she can’t find the blueprints. They’re not in the lab or the secondary console room or the wardrobe or the incredibly dusty kitchen, and so she has decided that two pairs of eyes—even if the second pair are “inherently inferior, hardly better than light-sensitive skin patches, evolution has been wasted on you”—are better than one, and has uprooted Osgood from the lab to tow her around the TARDIS.

Osgood pretends to look very closely and carefully in every nook and cranny, keeping one eye on the Mistress. The Time Lady’s been aloof and haughty all week, barely looking in on Osgood to feed her or take her to the lab. Is she sulking? Genuinely remorseful? She hasn’t touched her except for her fingers hooked under her collar.

Osgood keeps having dreams where the Mistress is touching her. 

She wakes up sometimes with her hand between her legs.

Osgood blushes and pushes aside a stack of tapes, pretending to check behind them. Dreams don’t mean things—do they? Unless the Mistress can hear them, unless Osgood is pushing her again, tempting her, leading her on…

That has to be it. No one would touch Osgood otherwise. Certainly not the Mistress.

It was so bad and frightening when it was over, but it had been so good while it was happening, hot and dizzy and heart-in-her-throat like at the top of a roller coaster, and she keeps thinking about it, the press of the Mistress’ lips against hers and how her lips tingled lightly even after she broke free, tingled until she had to touch them and then the memory of the Mistress’ hands, pinning her back against the countertop, no decisions and second-guessing and anxiety, only the certainty of obedience, only the pleasure of submitting to her touch—

And Osgood doesn’t want to want these things, but she thinks—she thinks that maybe—and if that maybe is a yes, then it is her fault, she did want the things and that could have made the Mistress want them, human hormones and stray thoughts inviting, promising, demanding—

The Mistress stopped. She did stop, when Osgood cried. And she said it was only the way Osgood looked in those clothes, and the thoughts Osgood was thinking. She said she didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t she? Did she mean it? In that thorny hedge-maze of a brain, is there a little shelter with a picnic table and a bench, where someone could be kept safe?

Osgood doesn’t know, and that is why she had the TARDIS recycle the TCE blueprints when she found them in the lab a week ago. She really, really hopes the Mistress doesn’t think to check the logs.

“This is pointless,” the Mistress declares. “I’m going to scan from the primary console room.”

She snaps her fingers for Osgood to follow her, not even bothering to grab the collar. Where else would Osgood go but with her?

#

The Mistress flings Osgood onto a random velvet chaise longue in the primary console room—“lie there and look adorably confused, there’s a good human”—while she toggles switches on the walls, kicks the floor, and pulls open a closet containing a mountain of equipment, which she begins rummaging through with what looks like homicidal intent, muttering things under her breath like, “oh, don’t bother making a filing system, just chuck _al_ l the disguises in the same closet along with the leftover sentient plastic and your cigars, that won’t cause you any problems down the road, you imbecile.”

For a moment Osgood can’t do anything except try to keep her breathing even; she has been running fast and the chaise longue is full of dust. It’s probably alien dust, which is scientifically exciting and she should probably take a sample, maybe ask Missy if she can look at it under a telescope later after they leave the console room—

Console room.

And suddenly all Osgood can look at is the console.

It’s different than the pictures she’s seen. Dr. Shaw left behind some very detailed schematics, and Osgood can already spot several key differences , but basically—

Basically it’s the same.

It’s even got the same indicator light, showing that they’ve landed.

Osgood can take three steps, and pull a lever, and a door will open, and she can _run._

And the Mistress’ back is turned.

Osgood stands like she’s standing in a dream, time oozing past in slow motion as her suddenly lead-heavy legs move through air gone thick as Jell-O: one step. Two. Three. Her hand. Her hand is on the knob of the lever. Her hand is pulling down, and as slow as geologic time the door swings open—

The stars shine bright against an ink-black sky, and a silver nebula dances in the distance.

The stars are so bright, and for a second that is the only thought her mind can hold. Stars. Her cheek is wet. Step. Another step. Step. Three steps, six total. Her hand reaches out to touch the stars, and a force-field sparks in the air between her and the void. Gold sparks like little stars. A buzzing hum that tickles her fingertips.

 _My dream came true_ , she thinks nonsensically. Her cheeks are even wetter now. She can hear her chest heaving, little sobs coming from far away. She cannot look away from the stars.

Her heart is so heavy it may pull her through the floor, and her mouth tastes like ashes.

She hears the Mistress come up behind her slowly, heels tapping on the floor as she approaches. Then the Mistress’ hand comes to rest lightly on her back, and her voice muses, “Now what would you have done if that had been an alien planet?”

“Run,” Osgood says. Her voice sounds so small, out loud. Foolish little human.

“Tch,” the Mistress chides, sliding her arm around Osgood’s shoulders and squeezing her tight. The first time she’s touched her all week, and it shouldn’t matter so much. “You would have just collapsed wheezing in a few yards anyway. Ozzie, you really must get over these commitment issues.” She rests her head on Osgood’s shoulder, sighs as she wraps her arms around her waist. “You are absolutely, positively, 100% worth killing,” she says kindly. “It’s a shame you have this rubbish biology where you can’t come back. But I’m willing to work around your disability.” She snuggles closer and gives a self-satisfied sigh that makes Osgood’s heart drop to the pit of her stomach. “I’m ever so fond of you.”

And then she kills her again.

#

_Nothing nothing nothing let me out let me out (LET ME OUT) of all the nothing that chokes presses in and around but nothing like I am nothing like I am nothing I am nothing I am (DEAD) nothing in the place that is no place no time no me can’t feel can’t feel because dead this is dead this is dead let me out please please let me out let me out letjoasjme aouot laet me out let me aoult let meouet met let me aout let me_

_Please_

#

“Please,” Osgood whispers, and she can hear herself, she can hear, there are things to hear and one of them is her voice and one of the others is the rustling of the leather around her hands tied back behind her, she has hands, oh thank God, oh thank God, the Mistress let her go, the Mistress showed her mercy, she is alive again, oh oh oh. Thank God.

“So eager,” and another sound is Missy’s voice, and another feeling is the cold hard table under her, and another feeling is the cold air on her backside, her trousers around her ankles. “You do have to watch the quiet ones. So naughty.”

“Every captured officer has a duty to resist—” Osgood starts to mumble, still half-conscious.

The Mistress’ hand clamps hard around her neck, leather over iron cutting off blood flow—there is blood flow to be cut off, she has blood, the Mistress gave her back her body and her blood. “Now, now,” she sing-songs, “if you can’t say anything nice…”

The world is swimming before Osgood’s eyes, red spots _(your color)_ over wavy black and grey shapes that refuse to coalesce. The world. She is alive, and back in the world.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

The grip slips for a moment, as if startled.

“It really hurt me when you tried to break things off,” the Mistress muses, her hold easing as her fingers slide up into Osgood’s hair, soft leather teasing at the skin of her neck and her scalp, winding locks around her fingers until it would take just one hard yank— “It really betrayed my trust in you. I have _deep-seated_ trust issues, Ozzie. It was really very cruel of you to strike where I’m so vulnerable.”

Around and around her fingers she twists the strands of Osgood’s hair. 

“Sorry,” Osgood croaks. Her voice, she has a voice and ears to hear it, she can never ever be without a voice and ears to hear it again, oh God let the Mistress not take away her voice again…

“But how can I trust that apology!?” And yank! There it goes, the pain exploding in her scalp—oh pain, yes pain, pain is a thing you can feel and she is alive to feel it, her whole mind and body are lit up and screaming with wonderful wonderful fireworks-and-lightning pain—as a ripping sound tells her through the post-death haze that Missy has pulled away a chunk of her hair. A drop of blood trickles into her left eye. “Oh, I want to trust you, Ozzie, but look at me!” Osgood can’t, she can only strain her head, trying to catch a glimpse of the Mistress just off to her side, her captor’s voice rising in hysteria. “I give and I give, and you don’t give anything back! If you would just give me something to work with—”

“Please…” Osgood whispers. She doesn’t know what she’s pleading for, life or a final death or the world to just hold still, she still can’t see properly even though she can feel her glasses on and why are her trousers down and—

Missy’s voice is suddenly calm. “I’m going to be very generous, Ozzie. Isn’t that nice? I’m going to let you have a choice. And what do we say when our best friends are generous and let us have a choice?”

“Th—” Her throat catches on the word, the way it caught on the bowtie shoved in her throat before. “Thank. You.”

“Good girl.” Those cold, leather-clad fingers, traveling the road of her spine. “So tell me, just between us girls: do you want me to kill you again, or should I punish you a different way?”

Osgood has forgotten every word she ever knew. Her life is a cold and broken thing that has settled heavy in her stomach.

Her life is a gift that the Mistress has given her, and she is choking on the taste of her gratitude.

“I’m waiting.”

“Different way.” The words yank themselves out of her. Another trips out. “Please.”

“Please, what?” The Mistress’ tongue strikes the second word sharply. Dangerous.

Osgood swallows. “Please punish me a different way.”

A snake’s hiss: “ _Please punish me a different way what.”_

“… Mistress.”

#

Crack! Twenty-three. Thwack! Twenty-four. Crack! Twenty-five.

Again, and again, and again, and Osgood cannot stop counting the numbers; she tries to forget the numbers but her brain, her stupid obsessive-compulsive obsessive obsessive obsessive brain, it just keeps ticking and clicking and counting as the crop whistles through the air and bites her skin, she can feel the bruises blooming. The pain is like a red wave that she is riding, and she might be able to soar above it but the numbers grab her and slot her back into the real world thirty-nine forty forty-one her wrists are pulling against the restraints but they are tight and her vision is blurred with tears (please let it just be the tears, please let the Mistress not have taken her sight) and something is wrong because she woke up so much faster before why is it taking so long now and the Mistress is pleased.

Thank God, the Mistress is pleased, and that means that she probably won’t kill Osgood again.

Osgood can hear it in her voice, a low saxophone murmur between the—CRACK fifty-six!—blows. 

“Oooh, aren’t you just lovely. All pink and red and purple. You’re a begonia, no, an orchid, oooh, a poppy!” Fifty-seven, or does that count? It’s less a blow and almost a caress, the crop ghosting over skin just lightly enough for the nerve endings to scream. “I’ll miss this, when you’re gone. It’s such a pity the Doctor’s going to kill you.” Her voice is almost a caress. “That man, no appreciation for a pretty bit of pain.”

WHACK without warning, fifty-eight, CRACK fifty-seven, a whimper jarred loose out of Osgood’s throat but it’s good, the pain is good, focus on the numbers and the pain because there’s something, there’s something about the fuzziness that

_(don’t fight it, she whispers to the Doctor)_

“No one likes a crybaby,” Missy chides gently. “You asked for this. Begged, even. Pretty, pretty please.”

But she didn’t, not really, did she? Only a bit, only because she didn’t want to die again—

_(oooh, that’s lovely, Missy murmurs sinking to the ground)_

Because she’s not brave, not really, because she’s a coward, because she’s not the good girl who saves the Doctor and the day. She’s a coward. Coward. Coward sixty-three coward. Her cheek is wet; is she crying or sixty-four sixty-five bleeding again? Alive and coward. Sixty-six.

“Have you worked it out, yet?” Missy asks conversationally. “Turnabout is fair play.”

_(Hyperchlordiazepo—hyperchlor—hy—the tricky part had been synthesizing enough for a Time Lord, she told Kate, “A drop of this on a human, they wouldn’t even be able to focus their eyes, it’d be like breathing underwater, like)_

_(like)_

The crop is sliding downward across her buttocks, teasing at her thighs.

_(she kneels next to the Doctor, heart squeezing in her chest, she has to let him know that she will take care of him, that it will be alright, he can trust her, she will never let anyone hurt him)_

The crop works slowly between her legs.

“Please don’t rape me.”

Her teeth are click-clack-clattering, chattering like castanets. The words are whisper-thin and distorted like bubbles rising through water _(like breathing underwater, turnabout is fair play)_ and for a second she think that the Mistress has not heard them, that no one has ever heard them, that she never said them, that she never existed.

And then—

 _“Rape_ you?” The Mistress’ voice soars in pure outrage. “Now that really is taking our little self-esteem exercises overboard, my dear. You’re an _ape._ ” Disgust drips from every syllable. “A clumsy, disobedient little ape I picked up on a _whim_ ”—and the crop slaps down—“which you’ve never even _thanked_ me for—” and again, harder, Osgood whimpers—“all st-st-st- _stammering_ —” the Mistress spits the words, and the blows rain down in a sudden thunderstorm of pain, faster and faster—“and stumbling over herself and stinking of desperation and insecurity and human incompetence and hormones—”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean, I thought—” Words, words, crashing about her head like puzzle pieces that refuse to fit, that fall apart, her lungs seizing up—“I was scared, I didn’t think, I—”

“Oh, you thought,” Missy hisses. “You thought quite a great deal of yourself, didn’t you? Grasping—” one hundred and one!—“greedy”—one hundred and two, one hundred three!—“grubby little humans, making everything about sex, making everything about themselves!” Her voice went mockingly high-pitched: “Oh no, I’m not the center of the universe for one little second, I’ll derail the conversation and make it all about me, me, me!”

With each repetition the crop whistles through the air to bite down harder, and Osgood clenches her jaw, trying to suck in just one gulp of air, oh god, she promises she won’t even use it to scream.

“It would serve you right if I did…” The Mistress trails off, and Osgood hears her suck in a contemplative breath, and then the crop is swishing almost lazily through the air to ghost over the skin of Osgood’s back. “Oh, there’s an idea.” Her voice muses, meanders, the same tempo as the crop as it taunts Osgood’s bruised and broken skin. “Did you fantasize about this with the blonde one? Her father certainly had a rather fetching martial air that brought up all sorts of thoughts about whips and swagger sticks and the like. Naughty, naughty!” 

Osgood thinks she didn’t, not really—she only had pantsfeelings for Kate for about a week before the crush turned into something more platonic and hero-worshippy and aspirational and maybe even a little bit childlike because her own mum had never really understood anything about the way Osgood liked to crack open a problem and note down all the data and make hypothesis and experiments, and Kate had understood that right away, and Osgood’s mum had never really understood why Osgood had to do certain things over and over or she would have a panic attack, and even if Kate didn’t have OCD she _understood_ , somehow…

The Mistress chuckles deep and throaty, the end of the crop tracing figure eights along Osgood’s broken skin. “It’s always the quiet ones…oh, you dirty little thing! I bet you had your hand down your pants every hour thinking about it.”

But she didn’t, she thinks she didn’t—not after that first week when Kate discreetly shut down all the bullying from her coworkers, after that Osgood had stopped really thinking about her hands and her voice and her eyes, and it was really only once every few months that she had that really nice dream where they ran out of chairs at an all-staff meeting and she had to sit in Kate’s lap and then when she woke up she would blush every time Kate entered a room and avoid her eyes for a week…

And of course Kate was her best friend, but she doesn’t think it was really like she wanted—

“She fell out of an airplane, you should have seen the look on her face. And then, squish!” Missy giggles. “Humans—you’re like little balloons full of jelly! I killed the Doctor that way once and he didn’t squish hardly at all.” She pauses thoughtfully, and Osgood can hear her tongue clicking against her teeth. “But that one was all skin and bones and hair and teeth. Lovely voice, though. Like dark chocolate.”

Osgood liked Kate’s voice.

A sob breaks out, wrenching her throat.

“What’s this, then?” A note of genuine curiosity. The leather gloves slid into view, and Osgood flinches. But the touch is light as Missy traces the track of a tear. She brushes all of them away as softly as if she were repairing the damage to a butterfly’s wing. “Oh, Ozzie.” 

And her voice has changed completely, grown full of sorrow, swelling with sympathy. 

“She broke your little heart, didn’t she?” 

Osgood braces herself for a slap or another strike of the crop, but Missy’s fingers just stroke gently across her skin, over her hair. “She was too good for you, wasn’t she? Too good to give you the time of day. Oh, I know what’s that like.” The Mistress’ voice catches, and there is a rustle of fabric as she bends and presses a kiss to Osgood’s temple. A tear that is not Osgood’s falls on Osgood’s skin. It burns. A fierce whisper: “I will never hurt you like she did.”

And then she does stop hurting her.

Osgood’s tears brim over her eyes and across the Mistress’ fingers, and the Mistress does not punish her for her insolence, the Mistress only pets her hair and whispers kind words and promises, and the knowledge that it is all over rises and swamps Osgood like a tidal wave—over, over, over—and she goes limp as flotsam, helpless in this sea, drowned in her own exhaustion and shame and pure, sweet relief.

#

The Mistress bathes her wounds in a hot bath perfumed with jasmine.

The Mistress gently towels her dry, and rubs a salve on her skin that makes the pain fade away like a mirage.

The Mistress pulls the cord of the cashmere bathrobe tight around her, and tucks her into bed, the thick wool blankets pulled up to her shoulders.

“Night, night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

And then Osgood doesn’t see her again for three days.

#

Missy breezes into Osgood’s room as though nothing has happened, and dumps two packets on the bed. “Eat up! Get dressed! We’ve got places to be!”

Osgood stumbles as she gets up, woozy from lack of food. Her fingers are clumsy and she thanks heaven that the first packet she manages to tear open is the one with the butterscotches. She fumbles getting them into her mouth, the sugar bursting across her tastebuds like fireworks. “Where are we…”

“Balid Three, absolutely squalid little backwater of a planet, they still think digital watches are cool,” the Mistress says with a sniff. “However, ever since _someone_ sealed off a certain planet in a pocket dimension, they are also the only place where one can find the right kind of circuits for a T.C.E., which I still don’t have, which is completely _ruining my outfit_!” She prods Osgood. “Eat faster, we have to be at the embassy in an hour.”

A planet. An alien planet. Osgood’s heart can’t take this and the sudden sugar rush combined. “And you’re letting me…”

“I got you a leash and everything!” Missy proclaims proudly, whipping out and clipping a long silver chain to Osgood’s collar. Osgood hears something click together, and there is a slight mechanical hum as if things in her collar and her glasses are…rearranging?

“But…I tried to—”

Missy waves her arms as if Osgood’s words are a bad smell she is trying to get out of the room. “The past is the past, Ozzie! Well, most of time. Possibly some of the past will be the future once I’ve implemented my brilliant long-range plan, but I can’t even get started if I don’t have my TCE. Also, no one at the Balid embassy will respect me if I show up without a concubine, try to keep up. Why aren’t you dressed yet?”

“Concubine?” Osgood says in a small voice.

Missy rolls her eyes so hard that the orbit of nearby planets is probably altered. “Don’t judge their terrible, ridiculous, utterly primitive culture, Ozzie, that’s rude. We have to play along.” She shoves the unopened packet towards Osgood. “I’m taking you on an adventure through space and time, do try to be grateful. Now put those on, chop chop, there’s a good girl.”

Osgood unwraps the package, which contains a button up shirt, braces, and a bow tie.

She turns confused eyes to the Mistress. “But I thought I shouldn’t wear—”

“Yap, yap, yap, it’s as if I bought a Chihuahua,” Missy says, sighing the sigh of the infinitely put-upon. She marches over to Osgood and begins to unzip the back of her pajamas, brisk and business-like. “If you promise not to try to seduce me again, I suppose I can let you have your little treats.”

“I can do it myself!” Osgood says quickly, pulling away from the Mistress’s grip. She pulls the pajama top over her head and begins to button up the blue shirt as fast as she can.

Missy’s brow knits in puzzlement. “You’re not still pouting about that little spanking, are you?” She bops Osgood’s nose. “What a delicate little daisy! A stiff wind would knock you right over!”

Osgood stares.

It was—it wasn’t like that, it was worse, it was—

But the way the Mistress is acting—

She’s almost sure it was worse, almost—

“It wasn’t like that,” Osgood says. But her voice doesn’t sound sure even to her.

“Honestly, I thought you’d enjoy the thing,” the Mistress says. “The Doctor certainly does, and you like everything the Doctor does, don’t you?”

“But I don’t—” Osgood doesn’t want to anger the Mistress by halting her undressing, and she nearly trips as she tries to get out of the pajama bottoms as quickly as possible. “But I don’t remember it like that.”

“Ah, memory problems. I was afraid it would come to this.” Missy gives her shoulder a comforting pat. Osgood flinches and Missy gives another pat, firmer. “Oh, it’s not your fault, after all, you’re not even the real Osgood, are you?”

The words hang in the air. Osgood’s hands freeze on the hem of her trousers. All her words are frozen in her mouth. She raises her eyes to meet the Mistress’.

Missy frowns at her as if she’s a particularly dense student. “I killed the real Osgood back on that plane,” she enunciates slowly, as if she is explaining the most obvious thing in the universe. “I disintegrated her and crunched her hideous glasses under my heels. And then I whipped up a new Osgood out of a smear of blood and a few cybermats and the backup drive for the Nethersphere, and I’ve been simply burning through them ever since—some data loss is only to be expected. You’re a piece of paper fed through the copier a thousand times, Ozzie, you’ve gotten terribly smudgy and faded.”

Osgood’s hands are shaking. “You…made me?”

“See, the real Osgood would have figured that out ages ago,” Missy says. “But then, you are a bit scrambled, aren’t you? The nervous system simply wouldn’t fire up until I spliced in some bits of cybertech. Mostly human DNA, but I had to grow it in an Ogron nutrient broth. You’re really very disgusting, Osgood, it’s a wonder I can stand to look at you.”

A band is tightening around Osgood’s chest, she can feel her chest seizing up. She opens her mouth—to beg the Mistress to explain, to beg the Mistress to stop explaining, to beg for just one minute to process, to beg for her inhaler—but only a wheeze comes out.

“Why do you think I’ve been saying the Doctor’s going to kill you?” The Mistress takes the inhaler from her pocket and dangles it in front of Osgood’s face; Osgood’s hands itch to grab it and she only barely restrains herself. “You’re repulsive to him, your whole existence is revolting. Not to mention how he would feel if he knew the real reason you like dressing up like him.”

She chuckles fondly, and brings the inhaler to Osgood’s lips, and Osgood can do nothing but accept it.

#

Osgood just assumed that the Mistress was planning on stealing the circuits, but after a day being towed around various high society functions and teas, she realizes that Missy is actually planning, for some reason, to legitimately purchase it.

She’s too tired and too confused to try to figure out why. If she even could. Since she’s not the real Osgood.

The words are like a lump in her throat, like solid and inevitable stone. Her mind worries at them over and over, and can find no crack or fracture in them.

“Come to bed,” Missy says absently, patting the space next to her. She’s wearing a frilly nightgown, sitting up against the headboard with the blanket pulled up to her lap, poring over some files she picked up at the last party, the one where she made Osgood crouch down and be a footstool for her. All of the other aristocrats were doing it with their slaves. “I can’t concentrate with you sitting over there like a lump.”

Osgood tugs at the leash, but it won’t come undone from her collar, so she carries the whole thing with her over to the bed. Hesitates, then slides under the blankets. Curls with her back to the Mistress.

The Mistress unclips the leash for her, then pats her shoulder, gives it a squeeze. “So how did you like your first alien planet?”

Osgood closes her eyes. She wishes she could take off her glasses. “It was nice.”

She doesn’t remember much of it at all. A flash of jewels. A duchess’ laugh. Her calves cramping as she stared at the weave of the gold-green carpet only inches from her eyes, the weight of the Mistress’ legs resting on her back.

_not the real Osgood_

“Nice is for sunny days and men you don’t go on a second date with,” Missy says. She rustles some paper. “About appropriate for this planet, I suppose. The backwater’s backwater. Pass me my specs?”

Osgood opens her eyes and sees a pair of gold specs on the end table. She reaches out and takes them, hands them to the Mistress.

“The fine print on these contracts would blind a Gallifreyan bat,” Missy grumbles as she takes them with one hand. The other still absentmindedly traces patterns on Osgood’s shoulders and back.

Osgood stares at the wallpaper on the opposite side of the room, creatures that look something like peacocks with tentacles sporting amidst red leaves. She considers whether she should ask, decides it doesn’t matter—it’s not as if it’s the real Osgood who will be getting punished anyway. “Should I…do I need to, to do anything special—tonight?”

Missy pats her stomach this time. “Just keep being all soft and pillowy, there’s a good monkey.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Osgood says automatically. She closes her eyes, but something about asking the question feels like it has jarred other questions loose inside. She opens her eyes again, chews her lip. Risks it: “Do—I didn’t think Gallifreyans would ever co-sleep. Because you can tolerate colder temperatures better than humans.”

“We can,” Missy says, her voice undercut with the sound of her pen scribbling in the margins. “As I recall, its origins had more to do with pre-Dome life. Lots of nasty predators in the mountains. Safety in numbers.” Her hand gives Osgood’s arm a little squeeze. “And who’s a naughty girl who’s been thinking about Gallifreyan sleeping arrangements, hmm?”

Osgood curls into herself, waiting for the hand to move. Not that it matters. It’s never mattered what happened to her. No one will bother to save a bad copy. 

But the Mistress only laughs and pulls the blanket up over Osgood’s shoulders. She strokes her hair with her left hand as her right shuffles through the paperwork by the golden light of the bedside lamp, and after a few minutes she begins to sing under her breath, a language Osgood doesn’t know, and it’s soft and it’s lost and it’s yearning and she doesn’t think Missy even realizes she is doing it.

Very slowly, the tension starts to unspool from Osgood’s back, and she leans into Missy’s touch.

And before Osgood realizes it, she has drifted off to sleep.

#

“Oh no. No, no, no, no, and finally, no, that simply will _not_ do.”

Osgood pauses, halfway through twisting her hair back into a ponytail. “What?”

Missy manages to compress an infinite amount of impatience into a huff, and stalks over. “Give it,” she says, snapping her fingers, and Osgood hands over the rubber band. “You’re supposed to be my concubine, Ozzie, I can’t have you looking like you’ve rolled out of a barn.”

She hangs her head forward as the Mistress vigorously finger-combs her hair, making various exasperated clucks and sighs as she begins to style it, as if human hair were designed specifically to thwart her. There is a clicking sound as if she’s yanked several bobby pins out of her own hair.

“Do you need me to—do anything, today?” Osgood asks. 

“Possibly,” Missy mutters around what sound like a mouthful of bobby pins. “Lord Klozer is playing dirty pool, if you hear anything in the servants’ kitchen after dessert—ah, there we go!”

She pushes Osgood’s head back upright, and surveys her work with a combination of pride, and exasperation that her work was even needed. She spins Osgood towards the mirror. “There. Like you’re a brand new person.”

And before Osgood can look away, she sees herself.

She sees the hair first: interlocking French braids, more complex than anything she’s dared to try before. And nice. Really nice. Her hand steals up to touch the end of one, and the movement draws her eyes to the red frame of her glasses; it’s the first time she’s seen them head on, and not out of the corner of her eyes.

Her eyes.

They used to be brown. She is almost certain they used to be brown.

They’re silver now, and she can see things shifting inside.

Missy props her head on Osgood’s shoulder. “You can be so lovely when you just take a bit of pride in your appearance, Ozzie. I do wish we had time to go shopping, red is entirely your color.” She encircles her waist with her arms, squeezes tight as she lets out a regretful sigh. “It’s such a pity that the Doctor’s going to kill you.”

#

Osgood isn’t planning to escape. If there were even anywhere to escape to, it would be stupid to try on the first alien planet the Mistress takes her to. The Mistress will be expecting something like that, will have prepared contingency plans.

So escape is the furthest thing from her mind when she is walking with her fellow concubines down to the servants’ dinner, and the wall next to her explodes.

The blast throws her to the other side of the room, and her vision blinks black, her lungs threatening rebellion as she chokes on the stone dust, her hands scrabbling for purchase on the floor. Blood trickles down onto her hands and she raises a hand to her face, feels the bleeding from her ears. That explains why everything seems to be echoing from so far away.

A hand latches onto her arm, and Osgood yanks away, tripping over herself as she flattens her back against the wall. The hand emerges from the dust cloud with the rest of the body, head to toe black jumpsuit and a red sash.

“I’m with the resistance!” he shouts—she can tell he is shouting by the way his mouth moves, even though the sound echo tinny and distant. “We’re getting all of you out of here!”

He throws a grenade, and there’s another explosion, and somehow during this he has taken Osgood’s hand and they are walking, walking, walking out of the castle and no one is stopping them, everyone is running and screaming and no one sees them at all.

“Is this really happening?” Osgood asks, but he is looking away and doesn’t see her lips move. She doesn’t even hear herself.

There is a hovercar in the street, and he is pulling her towards the hovercar as the explosions light up the night, and Osgood feels something light and spark in her chest, something that was hiding peek out its eyes and look up, she is escaping.

She is escaping.

Six more steps, then five, then four, she is escaping, three to the hovercar and then—

Her rescuer stops walking, sways on his feet. Osgood looks up at him, and recoils.

A red flower of blood is blooming on his forehead, and he slumps to the ground.

And somehow, over the screams and the explosions, she hears the light wisp of the wind buffeting an umbrella, and looks up to see Missy, umbrella in hand, drifting inexorably towards the ground.

Missy alights in front of her, takes her face in her hands, briefly checking for bruises. She presses a kiss to Osgood’s cheek, and shakes her head.

And Osgood hears her loud and clear:

“Ozzie. I really am terribly disappointed in you.”

#

The bolt on the Balidian cell door screeches as it is drawn to the side, and Osgood’s head snaps up. Bright light spills through the crack of the opening door into the cold dark cell where she has been held for the past several hours. The relief that washes over her at the sight of Missy is so intense that she stumbles, has to reach out a hand to support herself against the wall.

“I thought you left me behind—”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have,” Missy says, letting the door slam shut behind her. All darkness again, dusk, the Mistress only a long splash of black ink against the deep grey walls until Osgood’s eyes adjust. “Believe me, I am still considering it.”

Osgood gapes. She doesn’t understand.

“Can’t think of any? I’m not surprised. I can’t think of any either.” Missy’s lower lip is trembling, a child about to throw a tantrum. “We were getting along so _well_ , Ozzie! I was trying my very hardest, and what do I get for thanks? You try to _leave!”_

“I, I wasn’t trying,” Osgood protests. “Everything was happening so fast, that man just took my hand, I didn’t understand—”

“Oh, don’t think I didn’t see you take his hand, you devious little slut.” Missy strides forward and slaps Osgood so hard she falls to the floor. “Oh, you’re happy to lead me on, but you just fall into the arms of the first terrorist in a snappy outfit you see. I thought we were friends!” Missy’s hand is in her hair, yanking her head back. “You know what the most offensive part of this is? How _stupid_ your little plan was. You really have deteriorated since the first cloning. I really might have to scrap this entire project.” She bares her teeth in a feral grin. “Cut my losses.”

Osgood reaches up her hands to the Mistress in supplication, trying to see through the tears jarred loose by her blow. “I didn’t plan anything, I swear! I wasn’t trying to leave, I was just disoriented, I don’t want to leave you—”

The Mistress yanks her hair and throws her against the wall. Osgood cries out as stars burst behind her eyes, and huddles on the floor, shivering.

Missy’s heels stalk closer. Click, click against the wet stone floor. Click.

“Did you know that the Balidian secret police are nearly unrivaled in their creative use of torture?” Missy voice says from above her, suddenly sounding very cool and collected. “I’ve had just the most fascinating conversations with some of their officers in the aristocracy. Primitive, of course, all nail files and toothpicks and gang rapes and other boring things, but that’s only fueled a wonderfully single-minded sort of resourcefulness on the life support end. They’re the Boy Scouts of interrogation; they can keep a subject alive and in agony for _centuries_. Me, I’d just lose patience.”

“Please,” Osgood whispers. She is trying to sit up but every time the world swims and staggers and knocks her back down. “I don’t want to leave you. I didn’t try to leave.”

“Well, of course I don’t _want_ to believe you were complicit in that little amateur production of Les Miserables,” Missy raises her foot and lets the point of her heel rest on the back of Osgood’s hand. “That would be _heartbreaking.”_ She presses down more firmly; Osgood whimpers. “But what evidence do I have otherwise?” She crouches, her heel only pressing harder into the back of Osgood’s hand as she reaches out to comb the sweaty strands of hair away from Osgood’s face. She takes Osgood’s chin in her hands, tilts it up. Her touch is almost gentle compared to her harsh tone. _“What’s one single thing you’ve done for me?”_

Osgood claws her free hand at the Mistress’ dress, trying to sit up. She leans upward, presses her lips to the Mistress’. It’s the only thing she can think to do. “Please…”

She feels the Mistress’ sharp intake of breath, and the way she lets it out again, slowly. Considering.

Then the Mistress shakes her head. “Too little, too late.”

Osgood’s heart is thumping in her chest, and she knows that the real Osgood is dead, the real Osgood died so long ago and no one will come looking for her but she is alive right now, her heart is beating right now, beating so hard and she doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t want—“I could—I could do more.”

One sharp fingernail traces the line of her chin. “Oh?”

“I could—” Osgood’s lips are dry; her tongue traces a bleeding crack. Her throat has gone dry as well. Is she really going to offer this? “I could prove my—dedication to you.”

She closes her eyes; wills the Mistress to understand.

The fingernail dips down to her neck, tracing a path along her jugular. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re implying.”

She’s going to make her say it out loud. She’s going to make her say it out loud, and then she going to laugh at her, and then she’s going to kill her anyway.

“Sex.” That word is so ridiculous, so inadequate. Osgood is so ridiculous, so inadequate, so small and lost and doomed; no one would ever want anything she has to give. “Um. Oral sex.”

A tear escapes her eyelashes, drips down her cheek.

The Mistress lets go, straightens to her full height. “That is by far the least enticing proposition I have ever received.”

It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work. Osgood hangs her head, feeling a lead weight settle into her stomach. Waits for the killing blow, or for the door to shut behind the Mistress, her captor, her hoped-for savior.

“Well?” And the rising note of impatience snaps Osgood’s neck back up. The Mistress huffs, raising an eyebrow. “What are you waiting for? Get to it.”

#

The rough damp stone digs into Osgood’s knees as she crouches beneath the Mistress’ skirts, her head between her thighs, her tongue diving desperately into the Mistress’ cunt as she tries to remember everything from the one time her ex-boyfriend did this for her, and the taste of the Mistress is everywhere and the scent of her is everywhere, suffocating, intoxicating, terrifying, and Osgood is trying to ignore the pressure building between her own legs, she can’t come yet, she can’t, she’s not allowed—her hands are bound behind her back so she can only use her mouth, her glasses are pressing hard against the pale skin of the Mistress’s thighs, making the angle awkward as she kisses, sucks, delves, her fear is a frission of ice cold up her spine and the heat is building between her legs, teasing and promising, threatening—the TCE prototype is between her legs, vibrating, the controller in the Mistress’ hands and if she fails to make her Mistress come it will explode between her legs but if she makes the Mistress come then she will get to come, the Mistress promised, her nipples are hard as she whimpers, trying not to let the weapon slip out of her—

The Mistress laughs, and the sound is so far away but the feeling vibrates throughout her body, oh god, Osgood can feel it vibrating against her lips, against her tongue, the TCE is vibrating even faster deep within her and she is so wet and she is running out of time, she is going to die, she kisses the Mistress as deep and as far as she can go, has she made the Mistress wet or is she just crying? She just wants to live, she just wants to--

She whimpers again and the Mistress jerks just slightly against her, is she going to press the button or is she going to come, the Mistress promised she can come too if she succeeds, oh God please let her come, please let her come, _I don’t want to die, please let me just come once before I die, let me come, let her come—_

#

It is even colder in the Balidian cell at night, and darker, and the only sounds besides the distant screams are the slow dripping of the icy water down the sides of the stone walls. Osgood curls in a corner where the moss is slightly thicker and spongier, and tucks her hands into her armpits and tucks her chin down to her chest and tries to pretend that this makes her warm. Tries to pretend that the water hasn’t soaked into her shirt and her trousers and sent icy daggers down to her bones. That the moss and the mold aren’t choking her, making every breath a long and drawn-out strangle as she shivers, all alone. Every few hours there is a clank and a screech of a cell door opening somewhere near, and the garbled words of someone screaming for mercy. There is no mercy. There is never any mercy.

But in the morning, the Mistress comes to take her away.

#

The second alien planet the Mistress takes her to is all glaciers and snowdrifts, the lights of emerald green fires gleaming across the snowflakes as they fall, soft as eiderdown, over spindly towers and sloping hills and the frozen sea. The Mistress keeps her under lock and key while they are in the capital city, and Osgood keeps her eyes down and bites her lip and doesn’t say a word when the Mistress leaves her behind in their hotel suite for twelve hours with no food. She doesn’t deserve food. She’s lucky just to be alive, lucky the Mistress let her live.

(And she doesn’t know why the Mistress let her live, because the Mistress hasn’t touched her, not beyond a hand on her shoulder or in her hair when she sleeps, and she thought things had changed now, she thought she had to…)

On the seventh day, though, the Mistress declares that she’s gotten all that she can out of these “useless busybodies,” and also there’s a large smoking crater and some sirens and a really large and well-armed body of soldiers marching down the street towards their hotel, so she pulls Osgood into the TARDIS and takes them to an isolated cabin out in the wild western mountains, fully stocked with food and with a fireplace that burns perpetually warm and bright green, and wide frost-sketched windows that look out on snowflakes that whirl and spin like ballet dancers across the blue ice, and a door that is always unlocked because there is no place to run.

“Come to bed,” Missy says. “The snow will still be there when you wake up.”

Osgood comes to bed, curls under the blankets sewn from the soft pink feathers of alien birds. They tickle her nose and she sneezes, the tickle working deeper into her chest. “Mistress—”

She doesn’t deserve it, but the Mistress hands her the inhaler, lets her take a long dose of it before she takes it away again.

The feathers are as long as her forearm, and she idly wonders what the birds must look like in life; the asymmetrical shape leads her to believe they must be flight feathers, but they are soft and flexible, and how would even the lightest skeleton compensate for their weight at this size?

The Mistress’ left hand finds her hair and begins stroking it, an uneven, fretful rhythm that means that she is not quite thinking of sleep yet. And so Osgood cannot quite think of sleep yet, because the Mistress may want something.

“Would you give me a present, Ozzie?” she asks after several minutes.

Osgood’s shoulders do not tense. There is the feeling of her lungs slowly filling up with air as she takes as deep a breath as she can manage. The feeling of a grey curtain being slowly settled down over her mind. “What would you like?”

Missy tugs at her shoulder until Osgood flips to face her, then shoves the blueprints at her, the paper rustling and crinkling. “Good girl. Build this for me.”

Osgood props herself up on the elbow. It’s blueprints for the TCE, heavily amended in red ink.

“Well, chop chop,” Missy says, making shooing motions. “All the bits are in the larder, you can get started right away.”

Osgood frowns, puzzled. “I don’t understand. You could easily make this yourself.”

“Well, of course I could,” Missy says, rolling her eyes. She flops backward onto the pillow and heaves a sigh. “But I’ve done it so many times, and it’s so _boring_ I could just _scream_. Be a dear and do it for me just this once, won’t you?” She pouts up at Osgood. “Tell you what, I’ll let you have a biscuit if you do it right.”

Osgood takes the papers hesitantly. They feel so light in her hands. Plans for destruction and death shouldn’t feel so light in a person’s hands.

Her hands are shaking.

“I don’t want to make a weapon,” she says without thinking.

Missy frowns. “What?”

“I mean,” Osgood says hurriedly, “I mean, I’d rather—right now, I’d rather do, um, other things with you.”

She cringes, hearing herself. What kind of seduction attempt was that? She tries to reach out to stroke Missy’s arm, but her own arm refuses to obey and it comes out as an awkward pat, not even remotely sexy.

Missy raises an eyebrow. “So eager again already?”

“Um.” Osgood looks down, picks at the feather bedspread. Will this work? It has to work. “It was…nice.”

Missy snorts. “Speak for yourself. Your desperation was the only thing that made your inept, pathetic fumbling halfway entertaining for me.”

“Oh.” It shouldn’t hurt this much, to hear the Mistress say that. She wasn’t expecting it to hurt at all, but it does, a sharp stabbing pain. “So you don’t want to ever—try, again.”

“I didn’t say that.” The Mistress makes a considering noise. “Well, I suppose I did say I would instruct you. I haven’t got my instructing dress at the moment, but needs must.”

Osgood raises her gaze slowly. 

Missy sprawls backwards over the bed. “Get a move on, then. Some foreplay is appreciated, but not to the point of a Peter Jackson movie.”

Osgood tries not to be distracted by the fact that Missy has apparently seen Peter Jackson movies. She pushes the blueprints carefully to the side on the end table. This isn’t the end of this, but if she can just get Missy thinking about having her to other things, things that aren’t building weapons—

She might not be the real Osgood anymore, but whoever she is, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to build weapons.

The Mistress is watching her with narrow blue eyes like a Siberian tiger, and Osgood is keenly aware of where that predatory gaze falls, all the problem spots her body has, all the puppy fat and ungraceful lines that her sister had helpfully pointed out to her since she was seven, that she maybe could have worked off if her lungs weren’t the kind that quit on her at the first sign of exercise. She tries not to think about it as she sits up fully and awkwardly straddles the Mistress, her knee bumping into the Mistress’ side.

“Sorry,” she mutters, and bends forward quickly to kiss Missy’s cheek. The skin is cold, and the Time Lady does not respond.

Osgood presses another kiss to her jaw, a peck really, and another to her neck. A slight intake of breath, is that good? She’s not sure how much of her weight to let rest on the Mistress; she keeps most of it on her knees to be safe, but the bed is soft and spongy and sinks down under her, making it hard to balance. She presses another quick kiss to the Mistress’ shoulder, and her hands fret at the fabric of the Mistress’ nightgown by her waist; she can’t quite figure out how to pull it off in this position, so she reaches up and squeezes Missy’s breasts—

“Enough!” The Mistress pushes her backwards, up but not quite off of her lap. She is staring up at Osgood with incredulous eyes. “Have you _ever_ had sex before?”

She had sex with her ex-boyfriend exactly three times before he dumped her via text. Two years ago. She looks away. “A few times.”

There is a cold pit forming in her stomach. It didn’t work. 

“Osgood, you useless lesbian,” Missy says, shaking her head in fond exasperation. She sighs, as if Osgood’s inexperience is the weight of the world on her shoulders. “Well, I suppose I can teach you.”

“Thank you,” Osgood manages to say instead of correcting, _bisexual with demi tendencies_. The Mistress never likes to be contradicted, and particularly not when she’s being magnanimous. 

And she is thankful. That is the most astonishing, and terrible, and not-to-be-thought-of thing. 

So she will not think about it.

She will only think about this moment, and the Mistress and her eyes and hands, and how to get through.

“You’re welcome,” Missy says with a feral grin, and flips her onto her back without further ado. The breath whooshes out of Osgood as her back hits the mattress, Missy pinning her with one hand on her shoulder as she leans in, black curls tumbling over her ears. “Now pay attention,” she says severely. “There will be a test later.”

Ice-cold lips press against Osgood’s jaw and she shivers as the Mistress lingers there, her sharp-nailed fingers tracing snowflake-light lines along the tender skin of Osgood’s neck. Her tongue flicks out over that tender skin, traces slow, leisurely patterns there, and Osgood can feel her blood in her neck as she arches upward, offering herself to her Mistress’ mouth. Missy kisses her neck slow, so slow, so slow and thoughtful and maddening, her lips soft and her tongue teasing and then the graze of her teeth like a veiled threat, and then just her breath against the wet and waiting skin, and Osgood trembles as Missy blows carefully against her pulse point, flicks out her tongue to lick the hollow of her throat. The Mistress’ right hand is still gripping Osgood shoulders tight, the tips of her fingers just barely brushing the blushing skin of Osgood’s neck, and the fingers of the Mistress’ left hand are stroking at Osgood’s stomach where they has come to rest, the fabric of her shirt slowly bunching up, fraction of an inch by a fraction of an inch with every stroke. 

Should she be touching the Mistress? Osgood raises her hands awkwardly, not sure where to put them. Brushes her palms against the Mistress’ sides, not quite at her breasts, is that enough, is that too much, is she doing it right—

The Mistress pulls back.

“Put those away unless you want to lose them,” she says mildly.

Osgood obeys with alacrity.

“I need you to focus,” she goes on. “In fact—”

She reaches for her bracelet, fiddling with the controls there—

And Osgood’s vision goes black.

Osgood gasps, starting upward in shock, but the Mistress’ hands force her back down again. “Now, now—” the Mistress’ voice is shockingly close to her ear, cool puffs of air against the delicate shell as her tongue flicks out to lick the lobe—“we can’t be having any distractions, can we? Be a good girl and I’ll let you have it back.”

Osgood gulps, her hands twitching helplessly against the mattress. Dark, dark, dark, but it’s not like when she dies, it’s _not._ She can feel the Mistress on top of her, an anchoring weight in smooth skin and silk that whispers and rustles, and the scent of Mistress’ desire is heady in her nostrils, and she can feel the Mistress’ hands on her and the Mistress’ hands will hold her there, the Mistress will hold her together, her Mistress will hold her—

A puff of air against her collarbone. “Now, are you paying careful attention?”

A single nail trails down her neck, hovers above her breasts.

“Yes, Mistress,” she whispers.

The fingers trails down further, and she arches up against the Mistress’ touch before she can even ponder whether that is allowed, and the Mistress’ chuckle is dark and velvety against the hollow of her shoulder as her deft hands undo the buttons of Osgood’s shirt, the faint rasp and hiss of the cloth echoing in Osgood’s ears along with her heartbeat. The Mistress’ palms brush against Osgood’s breasts almost as an afterthought, fingers stealing around the edges in teasing circles, skating over her upper stomach and then her collarbone, trailing down her arms as Missy tugs the fabric back, trapping her arms, not quite letting her shed it. Up and down and all around and circling closer, Osgood’s breath coming shorter and shorter as Missy’s hands warm against her skin, her blood feels as though it is burning in her veins, the Mistress’s mouth is making its unhurried, meandering way between her breasts and oh, Osgood whimpers as her tongue glances just along the soft and untried skin there, her thumb grazing the tip of Osgood’s nipple and she feels the Mistress’ dark smile against her skin as Osgood bites her lip to keep from crying out, and those long and clever fingers circle around again, cupping her fully before her mouth dips low and closes over her—

Osgood hears a low whine come from her throat, and she tries to choke it back, is it allowed—

And then the Mistress twists her right nipple as she sucks harder at her left, and the sound bursts out as Osgood’s eyes, already useless, fall closed, her neck twisting her head backwards into the pillow as she tries to flinch from and push into the Mistress’ touch at the same time. The Mistress growls, and it vibrates against Osgood’s raw skin, and oh, it shouldn’t feel this good, this heat pooling between her thighs, this slickness between her legs, so ready—and the Mistress is touching her in earnest now, her mouth hungry and demanding against Osgood’s breasts as she teases at her nipples with tongue and lips and teeth, as her hands roam up and down Osgood’s sides, seizing at her shoulders, hinting at the hem of her trousers, retreating up between the valley between her breasts to draw tantalizing lines along her neck and the curve of her ear, digging into her hair and pulling her head back as if baring her neck for a knife. Her thumb ghosts along Osgood’s lower lip and Osgood knows she is not allowing to touch her but oh, oh if she were to just let her tongue flick out to taste the Mistress’ skin, if she just let her lips close over the Mistress’ thumb and took it into her mouth to suck it and kiss it and stroke it and—

Osgood squeezes her thighs together, she has to concentrate, she has to remember so she can replicate—

Missy’s hands slip under her shoulder blades, slide down her back, nails biting in and then the pads of her fingers and palms soothing the skin there until her hands are cupping Osgood’s buttocks, and her mouth—warm now, warmed by Osgood’s skin, heat is rising off her skin, sweat pooling—her mouth is nuzzling at the hem of Osgood’s pajama bottoms, nipping and tugging at the cloth, her tongue dipping beneath it and Osgood shivers, sweats, presses up and then away as her heartbeat pounds in her ears, her blood singing in her veins, so good bad good bad good and click Missy’s teeth are tugging at the button till it slips from its hole, heat from the fireplace wafting over bare skin as the cloth slides down, her pants with it, rustling against the sheets and oh, she can feel Missy’s ragged breath on her, she can feel it _right against her—_

Missy’s tongue dips inside her, plunging deep before withdrawing, teasing stroking around her outer fold, flicking over her clitoris. Her lips have been warmed by Osgood’s skin but Osgood feels as though she is burning, she is melting, Missy’s mouth is hungry, ravenous, Osgood is trying to track and mirror-flip the movements of her tongue, curling and stroking and dipping inside just enough to make Osgood keen and clench her fingers against the cotton sheets, she is trying not to push herself against Missy’s mouth like she wants it but then the Mistress slides a finger into her and crooks it and that spot, that spot right there—two fingers, then three, rough and thrusting, and the tip of her tongue is still drawing circles on Osgood’s clitoris and she needs to break free but the Mistress is holding her down, she is trapped and the intensity of the pleasure is a sharp and searing thing—

Osgood’s whole back arches up as she comes, the force of it shaking her, an exploding star, shock waves radiating out from her center, the very tips of her fingers trembling as she cries out.

She sags back into the mattress, boneless and limp.

There is a clinking sound, and then a click, and blaring light floods Osgood’s eyes, slowly resolving into colors and shapes. She can taste blood where she has bitten her lip.

When Osgood’s brain is capable of processing whole thoughts again, it transmits a picture of Missy, propped up on her elbow and surveying her conquest with an impenetrable smirk. 

Osgood doesn’t know what to say.

“Well?” Missy raises an eyebrow. “Absorbed anything useful?”

Osgood swallows. “I think…I’ve got the theory.”

“Good.” Missy raises herself up, straddling Osgood’s shoulders and grinning roguishly as she hikes up her skirt. “Time for your oral exam.”

#

Osgood is dozing lightly, content in the warm light of the fire and the cool touch of Missy hand on her shoulder, the soft touch of the feather blankets on her mostly bare skin. Her whole body feels sated and sleepy, loose and elastic. The bed smells like her and like Missy and like the smoke from the fire, and her halfway-sleeping mind lets her wonder absently if this could last, how long she could stretch this moment where she is content and nearly safe.

Missy’s hand slips from her shoulder.

Osgood’s heartbeat spikes, and she turns in the bed, yielding, ready to supplicate—

But Missy is still asleep.

She tosses to the side, her face not quite hidden by a curtain of hair. Her brow is creased, and her fists clenching, unclenching. She is muttering something in her sleep.

“Missy?” Osgood ventures. “Mistress?”

Her eyes twitch and roll beneath their eyelids, and the muttering grows more vehement. Her teeth are grinding now, louder and louder, the tendons in her neck starting to stand out. 

Dreaming. She is dreaming. 

Osgood reaches out, hesitantly, and touches her arm. “Master?”

A shudder runs through Missy’s entire body, and her eyes snap open, terribly blank and empty. Her hand is up and around Osgood’s throat before she can blink, and Osgood chokes as she squeezes tight, flipping her and pinning her to the bed—

And then something kindles in her eyes, and her grip slackens as the emptiness fills up, and she pulls away, turning from Osgood.

Osgood gasps and gulps; her hand steals up to touch the raw spots on her throat. It will bruise later, but she doesn’t think anything is broken. The Mistress stopped before anything was broken.

The Mistress is still turned from her. Her back perfectly stiff and very carefully not shaking.

Osgood reaches out, wanting to touch her. But she doesn’t think the Mistress will find touch comforting. Not coming from her bad copy, her trained monkey. Her fingers rest in the air an inch from the Mistress’ shoulder.

“Do you—want to talk about it?” Osgood offers. The words are quiet and uneven in the still air, awkward.

The Mistress does not respond.

“Do you want…I could make some tea—”

“I don’t want bloody tea!” the Mistress snaps, venomous. 

Osgood flinches, letting her hand fall to the blankets. She dips her head to look at the blankets. She shouldn’t look at the Mistress. Arrogant to look at the Mistress, to think she could help her.

Then the Mistress slumps. Osgood sees her fist unclench, fingers spread across the folds of the pillow next to her. 

“Actually, some tea would be nice.”

Her voice is brittle, but the fury has dissipated.

For the Mistress, this is practically an apology.

Osgood hops off the bed, glad for something for her hands to do. She putters about quickly making the tea, fetching the leaves from the satchel next to the TARDIS, measuring them into the cup, putting the water on to boil in the kettle hanging from the hook over the fireplace.

It occurs to her that this is the closest any of her relationships have ever come to domesticity. 

The Mistress accepts the tea silently, but doesn’t drink it, only holds it in her hands for warmth. Osgood hesitates then crawls back onto the bed next to her. She puts her head in her lap.

One hand leaves the cup, and Osgood’s breath catches in her throat for a moment. But the Mistress only strokes her hair.

Osgood lets her eyes fall closed.

The Mistress’ nightgown is soft against her skin. The chill of her seeps out through it like a whisper of frost.

The hair-stroking continues for several minutes before the Mistress speaks.  
“I fell asleep next to you.”

Osgood doesn’t say anything, just nods. 

“Were you awake?” Missy asks.

“Yes.”

A long, slow sigh, and Osgood feels Missy’s posture loosening, her muscles untensing. The Mistress’ fingers slip from her chair to caress the skin of her neck, her cheek. The pad of her thumb makes soft circles against the hollow of her throat where she pressed so hard only minutes before.

“You wouldn’t hurt me even if you could, would you? Silly girl.” But there’s no bite to the insult, only a sort of confused gratitude. She sounds so lost, so wistful. “You’re the only one I can ever be safe with.”

Osgood opens her eyes, risks turning her head to press a kiss to Missy’s thumb. Her heart hurts. She wishes Missy couldn’t make her heart hurt, but she does, and she wishes no one had ever hurt Missy. She wishes that she could stop Missy hurting.

Missy bends low and presses a returning kiss to Osgood’s forehead. “You know I’ll be quite furious with you in the morning, for seeing me like this. I’ll probably punish you quite severely.”

“I know.” And she does. But— “But you’re sad _now.”_

“You should have pretended not to notice anything.” The Mistress rubs her back, a soothing rhythm. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“I know,” Osgood says. And she does. But that doesn’t change anything.  
So she does what she can and curls up against the Mistress, nuzzling against her hand. 

She can be warm for Missy, and soft, and fragile, and forgiving.

And that will have to be enough, until it isn’t.

The Mistress sips her tea and pets her head, and Osgood stays curled in the Mistress’ lap until light begins to steal over the ice outside the window and sleep calls her back into oblivion, and if the Mistress joins her there, she does not know.

It is only a temporary reprieve until the punishment tomorrow.

And Osgood still savors it.

It will have to be enough, until it isn’t.

#

But the Mistress doesn’t punish her.

Not that day.

#

Missy was planning to take her to a third planet, but the TARDIS is refusing, and it has put her in a dangerous mood. Osgood is standing with her back flattened against the wall of the console room as Missy ranges back and forth like a frustrated tiger, snarling, eyes flashing, her anger an unfocused thing like a swarm of bees or an explosive ticking down to zero.

A bead of cold sweat trickles between Osgood’s shoulder blades as that predator gaze finds and pins her like a butterfly to a board. Missy’s lips draw back as if she is trying to bare fangs, and she is in front of Osgood in three strides, hands on her wrists pinioning her against the wall.

_“What did you touch?”_

“Nothing,” Osgood insists, and it’s true, she didn’t touch a thing. But she’s too scared to make it sound convincing, even if it’s true, and Missy’s eyes flash.  
“We’ll see about that,” Missy snaps, and she yanks at Osgood’s leash, pulling her over to the console. The TARDIS makes angry clicking sounds as she uses a spanner to pry up one of its panels, revealing what looks like an interbraided series of glowing pink gel packs. She shoves Osgood’s hand between them and Osgood yelps, startled at the sting and the sensation of sucking at her skin. Her hand tries to jerk back automatically, but Missy’s fingers are firm and unyielding on her wrist, and iron manacle. “If the ship recognizes you…”

Osgood feels something like—it feels a little like electricity and a little like tasting, like something is tasting her, her thoughts—wriggling around inside her brain, ah, it hurts, sparks and needles down her nervous system—“Please, Mistress, I swear—”

_(her fingers flip the page to the mostly-blank TARDIS blueprints in the files, Kate’s voice coming from behind her, “Dr. Osgood, I don’t pay you to work on lunch break,” her looking up, panicking, protesting, “this isn’t work”—)_

A tear tracks down Osgood’s cheek, and then another.

The Mistress’ other arm encircles her from behind, her chin coming to rest between her shoulder and her rest. “You’re so pretty when you’re desperate,” she purrs, her tongue flicking out to lick at Osgood’s ear.

“I—I—I—” The words won’t come, this is supposed to feel good, it’s felt good before but the Mistress’ breath against her neck is too cold and the TARDIS clamped around her fingers and her mind hurts, what were those memories it showed her and she can’t think, she can’t think, she can’t—

_(the Doctor’s TARDIS descending from the sky, an ungainly blue box dangling from the U.N.I.T. helicopter, and her heart swells, her heart soars_

_“Inhaler,” says Kate)_

Missy’s fingers stroke over the front of her trousers as her teeth nip at the bowtie around Osgood’s throat, scraping lightly over the skin next to her as she pulls the knot loose. Osgood shivers, the edge of the console cutting into her hip as she leans away from Missy, as Missy leans further into her, trapping herself against its surface, the TARDIS’ humming deepening in tone and increasing in speed, a sound like vicious anticipation—

“Please, Mistress, I—”

“Sssssssh.” Missy’s fingers dip into her pants, part her and burrow into her, fondling her with a frenetic rhythm. “It’s been so long, Ozzie, not since you tried to distract me back on the ice planet, you won’t deny me now, will you?”

Osgood gulps, her heart stuttering, trying to shift away from the word and from the pinch of the Mistress’ sharp nails and the memories pelting through her head. “It wasn’t like that, it wasn’t—”

 _“Don’t tell me what it was like!”_ The Mistress’ nails cut into Osgood’s wrist where she holds it fast inside the TARDIS, the TARDIS sparks and sizzles, clenching around Osgood’s fingers. The Mistress’ voice softens, still dangerous but more insinuating, a scalpel rather than a broadsword. “I’ve been so good waiting all this time, Ozzie, waiting so patiently for you to beg me again. I want to hear you beg one more time with that pretty mouth before I kill you.”

Osgood whimpers, trying to enjoy it, trying to ignore the memories the TARDIS is shoving into her, if she can just enjoy it then the Mistress will stop being angry—“No, please, no…”

“Now, you know that’s not what I meant, Ozzie.” The Mistress’ tone is almost conversational as her fingers fuck Osgood harder and harder. She bites down on Osgood’s neck where it meets her jaw, hard, and lets out a little sigh as she releases, her tongue tracing over the breaks in the skin. Her lips kissing away a drop of blood as it trails down the side of her neck. “I was so patient, waiting, waiting, waiting, and you keep tempting me, wrapping yourself up in his clothes, begging me to unwrap you, unspool you, undo you, make you scream…”

_(she marches over to Osgood and begins to unzip the back of her pajamas, brisk and business-like. “If you promise not to try to seduce me again, I suppose I can let you have your little treats”)_

“You got them for me,” Osgood’s treacherous mouth whispers before she can stop it. 

Oh, stupid, stupid copy, can’t think, can’t say anything right, she deserves this—

“You didn’t have to wear them,” Missy points out, her voice harsh as she shoves Osgood harder against the console. “You could have looked around for others. You didn’t even try.”

_(you like dressing up as him)_

Osgood’s head is swimming, she has to think of something, she’s done it before, she used to be so good at thinking of solutions in tight corners but it hurts and she’s going to die while Missy and her TARDIS fuck her and it hurts, in her head worst of all, all the pictures swimming past—

_(that nice dream where they’re out of chairs at an all-staff meeting, and she has to sit in Kate’s lap, but it doesn’t mean)_

She sobs.

“And you’re so afraid,” Missy murmurs. The kiss she presses to Osgood’s temple is almost gentle, counterpoint to the brutality of her hands. “How can I resist hurting you when you’re so afraid?”

The TARDIS hums almost in agreement against Missy’s fingers, against Osgood’s cunt, and she comes.

Missy shoves her against the console as she releases her, and Osgood tries to brace herself, hearing the sound of Mistress adjusting the buttons on her bracelet.

There is a beeping sound instead, and then a squelch as the TARDIS releases her as well.

Missy trots around to the viewscreen to check the read-out. “Ah. Seems you were telling the truth after all. You didn’t touch anything.” She reaches over to pat Osgood’s head. “Good girl.”

Osgood gulps in a breath. Sweet relief. Her legs are wobbly and she aches between them. But it’s over.

“Still, I’ve programmed this and everything.”

And then the Mistress kills Osgood again.

#

“It’s such a pity the Doctor’s going to kill you,” Missy says, her voice distorted.

Osgood blinks. She has eyes to blink. She is not dead. 

She can’t breathe.

She heaves herself upright, hands splashing in the thick, sticky nutrient soup, the gelatinous liquid sucking at her skin as she breaks the surface, trying to pull her back down. She gasps in a deep breath; lights flare and tears mix with the clumps of genetically engineered semi-solid sliding down her hair, her vision blurring as her startled hands slip again, almost submerging her.

“It’s like watching a seal trying to do ballet,” says the large black blur that is probably Missy with an exasperated sigh. She descends with a salmon pink blur, and then a towel is rapidly scrubbing Osgood’s face and hair. Something red—the frames of the glasses settle over Osgood’s ears, and there is the familiar click and the quick stabbing pain, and the scene mostly resolves: the cloning tank, her own naked body, Missy somehow contriving to be perfectly spotless and serene.

And a large television screen, which is where the bright light is coming from that is making it so hard for her vision to adjust, making her eyes water and refuse to completely focus.

She looks at the Mistress, waits for her to tell her what to do.

The Mistress is not looking at her; she is looking at the screen, and what is playing on it. “Oh, this is my favorite part. When they get the chips together. Are you paying attention, Ozzie? I got this especially for you.”

Osgood squints, and the picture clarifies.

It’s Kate.

Her heart stops.

Kate and another woman, Osgood’s age, wearing a labcoat. Osgood’s age, but shorter, and prettier, glowing chestnut brown skin that looks like it’s never known a break-out in her entire life, sparkling brown eyes, a cascading waterfall of little braids. A confident smile.

The video continues playing, only images, no sound. Kate and the young woman are eating chips. Then they are walking. Then they are looking at a lab report together, and discussing something. Kate is wearing her favorite jacket, the light tan one with the worn-through left pocket. She has cut her hair again; it just brushes her shoulders. Have those lines always been around her eyes? She is wearing loafers, even though she always wears low heels if she can help it. 

The bright light is making Osgood’s eyes water again. 

But she can’t look away.

_Kate._

“You said she was dead,” Osgood whispers.

“I said no such thing,” Missy says. Osgood can see out of the corner of her eye that she has sat down in a spinny chair, propped her booted feet up against the tank. Her voice radiates concern. “Are you getting confused again, Ozzie? I had to cut a few corners this time; you wouldn’t believe what the Daleks are charging for gene-splicing technology these days, and then they always betray you, which, _helloooooo,_ is _my_ thing! Anyway, I’m not surprised your memory’s playing up, poor dear.”

Osgood’s fingers twitch against the sides of the tank where she is supporting herself. They are so cold. They are so numb. She is dead, not Kate. She has always been dead, she keeps on dying and dying.

Onscreen, Kate takes a slow sip of her coffee. Squeezes her eyes shut in satisfaction.

It is a miracle, and Osgood cannot look away, and is it so bad, being a broken thing, if she can have this miracle? Kate, going about her everyday life. Alive. 

With her new assistant, who is coming into view now, carrying a stack of reports.

Osgood’s eyes must be taking a very long time to get used to the light, because they are still wet.

“Didn’t take her long at all to replace you, did it?” Missy says indignantly. “And she doesn't spare a thought for you now. I doubt she'd want you back even if you were the real Osgood, _her_ Osgood.”

A tear slips from Osgood’s eye, tracks down her already wet cheek.

“Oh, Ozzie.” Missy rises in a rustle of silk, pulls Osgood’s nutrient-slimed head to her chest. Pats her cheek. “There, there. I had to show you. You had to face facts. It’s no good, all the secrets you have from me. It’s no way to build trust. Look at how I just had to kill you, because I couldn’t trust you.”

Osgood gulps back a sob, leans into her. 

“I’ll always want you with me, Osgood,” Missy promises, her voice soft and husky and soothing. “I’ll miss you ever so much when the Doctor kills you.”

#

She loves her Mistress. She loves her Mistress. She loves her Mistress.

Osgood wipes down the countertop carefully. She wipes it nice and clean. The Mistress likes her to keep her work-space nice and clean. She arranges her tools. There is a laser cutter and a pencil and a scalpel. She arranges them all in a row. 

It’s no good having secrets from someone you love. Someone who loves you. Secrets are no good. Thinking about faces and names you shouldn’t be thinking about is no good. Which is why the Mistress had to make the adjustments to her glasses. She brought it on herself.

Osgood touches the glasses. They are heavier now. Then she picks up the laser cutter, and begins taking apart the communication cube. There are very delicate circuits. She has to be very careful.

The Mistress has to listen to all her thoughts. It’s for her own good. The Mistress explained that when she cut into—that wiring pattern is interesting. Osgood picks up a pencil and makes a note of the interesting wiring pattern. It is intriguing how it is not causing the entire system to short out; possibly it is due to the type of metal the wire is composed of. Osgood scrapes a sample and puts it to the side. 

She puts down the pencil next to the laser cutter and the scalpel. They make a neat straight row.

She prepares a microscope slide. She loves her Mistress. She has to keep her thoughts a neat straight row. It’s not so different from what her therapist suggested when she had a therapist, when you have a bad thought you just have to say ‘that thought is there but it is not my thought’ and it goes away and comes back and you say it every time it comes back and each time it leaves a little easier and pretty soon you can see the shape of the bad thought coming before it even enters your mind and you can just stroll away from it, take a different path towards another thought; the scalpel is—Osgood should go to the kitchen and see if there is any more ice cream later. The Mistress loves ice cream. Everyone loves ice cream. 

Osgood loves her Mistress. She is the sun that Osgood orbits. What a nice TARDIS this is. What a nice laboratory this is, with her own laser cutter and her own pencil and her own scalpel.

Sometimes a bad thought will still come and the Mistress will have to employ punishment or negative reinforcement, but this is happening less and less. Smile, Osgood. It is happening less and less, and you have a lovely bow tie, and you love your Mistress. The trick is to slide over the thoughts, light as a dream, but there is no trick here, next thought: the metal sample. It is next to the laser cutter and the pencil and the scalpel, scalpel— Continue the experiment. No trick. What is the structure of the wiring of a communication cube, will it be crystalline or the trick is not to think at all, no trick, smile, she loves her Mistress—

Without thinking, Osgood picks up the scalpel and slashes a straight line across her throat. 

#

The body is the first thing Osgood sees when she comes to. It is sprawled across the laboratory floor in a pool of dried blood; the cut in the throat itself is oddly bloodless, like ripped cloth. 

“You didn’t seriously expect that to work, did you?” Missy says. Her voice is almost too carefully casual. “I’ve brought you back from _disintegration_ , Ozzie. She brings a glass of water to her lips. “You’ll be dehydrated. Drink.”

Osgood sits up, and when the world stops spinning, drinks. 

She is wearing the exact same clothes as when she died, but she can feel the sticky remnants of the nutrient gel between her fingers.

“That’s a good girl,” Missy croons. Her hand is gentle on Osgood’s back, stroking circles. Her hand is shaking.“You gave me such a scare. Naughty, naughty.”

One of the body’s hands is clenched to the throat, as if it tried at the last minute to hold the blood back in. The skin is mottled, pale except for the purple splotches where blood has gathered. The eyes are glassy, and silver.

“Oh yes, that,” Missy says, following her gaze. “Well, you know how the laundry piles up when I’m busy. Be a dear and clear that away when you’ve got your sea legs back, will you?”

Laundry. As if it’s just a pile of clothes. Maybe it is. Maybe she’s seeing things that aren’t there, the last in an ever-increasing series of malfunctions.

“Yes, Mistress,” Osgood says.

“That’s much better. Isn’t it nice when you do as I say?” Missy tries to smile, running her finger around the rim of Osgood’s glasses, but it’s wobbly. Her voice wobbles too. “Oh, Ozzie. How could you try to leave me again?”

Her eyes are full of tears as she looks down at her Osgood, at her bad copy of a bad copy of a bad copy, who she keeps saving when no one else would. Osgood’s stomach twists. 

“I don’t know,” she says, and it’s true. She wasn’t thinking. She loves her Mistress. She feels blurry and smeared, and unworthy.

The Mistress presses a fervent kiss to her cheek.

“Oh, Ozzie,” she sighs. “I want to believe you. But I just can’t trust you.” The glassy eyes of the body stare up at Osgood at she watches it over the Mistress’ shoulder.

The pool of blood under the body is red-brown. Red is her color.

A hot tear slides out of the Mistress’ eye, courses along Osgood’s cheek. “What can I give you, Osgood? What more can I give you to make you stay?”

#

She loves her Mistress. She loves her Mistress. She loves—

Missy plants a kiss on the tip of her nose, pats her rounded stomach. “Don’t be so nervous. Ready to get a good look at her?”

Osgood nods. She reaches out for Missy’s hand, and the Time Lady lets her take it, interlaces her fingers and gives them a tight squeeze. Osgood knows Missy is just as nervous as her, that she needs her little human to be nervous so she can be breezy and light-hearted and brave.

Osgood can do that for her. She can do anything for her Mistress.

Missy pulls up Osgood’s shirt, spreading the blue gel over her stomach before she pulls up the scanner. 

On the screen in front of them, the picture of a fetus flickers, small and pink and perfect.

“Oh, Ozzie,” Missy breathes, “she’s beautiful. The gene sequencing worked!” The hand not holding the scanner squeezes Osgood’s tighter, and she bends over to pepper little kisses all over Osgood’s face. “Good girl. You’ll take this one to term, I know it. Third time’s the charm, you’ll see.”

Osgood blushes, and nestles back against her lover.

“You’ll see,” Missy repeats. “I’m almost certain I won’t have to punish you hardly at all.”

Osgood’s heart skips a beat. What a strange thing for it to do. She is happy and content. She is not afraid. She will only be punished if she deserves it and she will try so hard not to deserve it this time. She will give the Mistress a baby, and that will prove her commitment to the Mistress, and she will belong to the Mistress forever, and they will always be happy.

The Gallifreyan/human gene-splicing won’t fail this time. It can’t.

The Mistress pets Osgood affectionately. “Worry, worry, worry. Ooh, it itches, all those thoughts like little ants.” And she presses another kiss to Osgood’s temple, and then, because she can hear Osgood wanting her to, she says the words that let Osgood relax. That let Osgood know that everything is going to be okay. That let Osgood know she cares: 

“It’s such a pity that the Doctor’s going to kill you.”


End file.
